expert corner
BIOTECH COMPANIES JOIN THE
‘MAKE IN INDIA’ BANDWAGON
The promising biotechnology sector has joined the India-centric manufacturing
campaign in their own way if one goes by the recent big announcements made by
few of the industry’s big players, writes Narayanan Suresh
Serum Institute of India, Pune,
already the world’s largest
vaccine maker to increase
production capacity by 50 per
cent with Rs 2,000 crore
investment
Cipla, a global drug major from
India, to plant Make in India
label by setting up Africa’s first
biological manufacturing unit
in Durban, South Africa, at an
investment of Rs 600 crore
These are some of the big
announcements from two of
India’s top biological
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BioVoiceNews | August 2016
manufacturers in the second half
of July 2016. There also have been
few significant moves by other
biotech companies too in the last
few weeks.
Serum institute’s Rs 2,000 crore
is a significant milestone because
it is going to stamp the country’s
authority in the complex field of
vaccine manufacturing in the
global market. Dr Cyrus
Poonawala’s Serum already
makes a record 1.3 billion doses of
various vaccines that reaches far
corners of the developing world.
With the new investment, the
manufacturing capacity will be
boosted by another 500 million
doses annually. So Serum will
make a whopping 1.8 billion doses
of vaccines a year soon.
The new manufacturing facility is
being set up at a Special
Economic Zone created for
biotech manufacturing by the
company a few kilometers away
from the existing campus. The
manufacturing facility will have
even more stringent standards
because it is aimed at capturing
two lucrative markets of Europe
and the USA.