HYDERABAD, Sept 29: Multinational drug company Myaln
has said it will invest USD one billion in the next 5-6 years
on Capex in India, given the importance of the country’s
position in world pharma supply-chain, and pitched for the
government incentivising research and development activities.
Mylan Global President and Executive Director Rajiv Malik
said the company had been investing close to about USD 400
million or USD 450 million towards Capex every year and half
of it in India.
“Half of that has been invested in India as a rule of
thumb. So we have invested about USD 200 -USD 250 million in
India every year. During the last six or seven years we have
invested more than USD one billion in India to upkeep and
expand the capacities, he told PTI.
As long as this network is there (in India), we have no
other option but continue to invest at the same pace. I would
say in the next 5 to 6 years it (investment on capex) would
not be less than one billion dollars, he said.
Mylan Indias journey started in 2007 after it acquired
Matrix laboratories and at that point in time the company was
predominantly a manufacturer of active pharmaceutical
ingredient (API).
Currently Maylan has 21 facilities and 15,000 employees
working in India.
Out of 44 plants we have today, India has 21 of those.
So India is the backbone of the supply chain. We do about Rs
1,000 crore in Indian commercial market, Malik said.
He said the Indian government needed to incentivise
research and development activities being undertaken by pharma
companies on drug development and new chemical entities,
though the country upkeeps its leadership position APIs and
formulations.
According to him, during the initial few years,
investments on R&D would not generate revenues for any pharma
company and many Chinese companies are now focussing on the
activity and competing with large corporations in USA and the
Europe.
That is where India needs to catch up. We will have to
incentivise the R&D. You incentivise and you create
infrastructure for the industry to do more R&D so that it is
not burdensome on companies, he opined.
Replying to a query, on the voluntary recall of certain
batches of blood pressure drug Valsartan from the USA market,
Malik said Mylan has addressed that issue and working with the
European and US Authorities.
This is not specific to Mylan alone. We have changed
the process to take care of that specific issue, the
executive said.
Out of an abundance of caution, these products have
been recalled due to detected trace amounts of an impurity,
N-nitrosodiethylamine (NDEA) a suspected carcinogenic
contained in the API Valsartan, USP, manufactured by Mylan
Laboratories Limited. (PTI)
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