Bal Pharma chalks out plans to become Rs 300-crore company

R BabyManoj - Bangalore

City-based Bal Pharma having a strong presence in antibiotics and gynaecology drugs segment, has chalked out an aggressive growth plan for the coming years. The company’s aim is to become a Rs 300 crore entity in a matter of five years, and one among the top 50 as soon as possible.

Among a number of initiatives, the company is setting up two state-of-the-art plants conforming to US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) standards in the country—one in the Northern State of Uttaranchal and the other in Bommasandra in Bangalore, where its factory and R&D facility are also located. The company is investing a whopping Rs 35 crore for setting up these plants, said Shailesh Siroya, Managing Director, Bal Pharma.

The plant in Uttaranchal will cater to the formulation business and the one in Bangalore to bulk drug manufacturing, he explained.

The company had recently launched its Rights Issue to raise funds towards this. ‘‘Our Rights Issue was oversubscribed by 1.156 times and we could muster an amount of Rs 11.75 crore through this route,’’ Siroya said. The company, which has floated many divisions to cater to the different segments of medicine, has already initiated a separate division for managing its anti-diabetic portfolio.

Currently, drugs in this segment led by its popular product, gliclazide earns a large chunk of revenue for the company. The company’s anti-diabetes products have become a hit in the southern states, a market which contributes to Rs nine crore to its revenue. For the cardiology segment—which is responsible for 10 per cent of the company’s revenue—the company has a separate ‘‘Servetus’’ division.

The company had also launched its Ayurvedic division, ‘Balvedics’, a couple of years back, which has contributed to the tune of Rs 1.5 crore to its revenue in the last financial year. ‘‘We expect to achieve a business of Rs 5-10 crores in the next couple of years in the Ayurvedic segment,’’ Siroya said, adding that the company is making only prescription medicines (not going OTC way) and it will remain so in the years to come, in this segment.

The company has a strong presence in the Intra Venous Fluid (IVF) segment too. It had bought the IVF business of ‘Miami’, a subsidiary of Lakme, in the year, 1995. Now the company does a business of Rs 4-5 crore in this segment.

In the bulk drugs segment, the $100 mn worth market of ant-histamine in the spanish speaking countries is what has attracted the company to apply for Drug Master Files (DMFs) in Spain for one of its products. The product is going off patent by the end of this year and we are the sole manufacturers of this product in India, Siroya said.

The company which remained largely export-oriented in its initial years of business, has reversed its market proportion from 70:30 to 30:70 in favour of the domestic market. Of the total business of the company, 15 per cent forms bulk drugs, it is learnt.

‘‘We will launch our own chemical molecules in the next 5-6 years,’’ Siroya said adding that the company which was aiming to become one among the top fifty in India, has targeted a business figure of Rs 300 crore per annum from the current 62 crore reporte in the Financial Year 2003-2004.

Siroya says the impact of India’s shift from process patent to product patent will be largely on the customers who would end up paying exorbitant prices for the medicines which were not originally developed by India. He is confident that it will not have much impact on the industry, which is competitive and capable of developing its own molecules.

— rbmanoj@expressindia.com