Panacea to scale up anti-cancer production, starts new plant

Drug firm Panacea Biotec said it is scaling up production of anti-cancer products with the commissioning of its new facility at Baddi in Himachal Pradesh set up at an investment of Rs 55 crore.

The new manufacturing facility that started production from today will have an annual production capacity of around 1.2 million vials.

"It will not only enable us to scale up production of our innovative range of anti-cancer products but also offer substantial affordable innovative medicine to consumers at large," Panacea Biotec JMD Rajesh Jain told PTI.

The facility will manufacture a complete range of anti-cancer formulations and will cater mainly to US market, he added.

There has been shortage of certain oncology products globally and even the US market has faced shortages and the company is targeting to tap the demand, the company said.

"In recent years use of oncology products has gone up by 20 per cent while the production capacity hasn't grown correspondingly. We are thus optimistic about contributing to mitigate the supply constraints of oncology products not only in India but also globally," Jain said.

In 2011, US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) had to resort to multiple temporary importations from unapproved sources to mitigate drug shortages, he added.

At present Panacea Biotec produces its anti-cancer products at its plant at Navi Mumbai.

The company is in process of registering its range of anti-cancer products in Europe, US and in emerging rest of world markets, it said.

Shares of Panacea Biotec were up 0.88 per cent on the Bombay Stock Exchange.