Recipharm expands Indian injectable dosage form capabilities

Partnership will combine capabilities and expertise in Europe and India to build a new facility dedicated to injectable formulations to supply demand from Europe and overseas territories.

The Sobti family’s newly created company Nichepharm Lifesciences will initially issue an 8% equity stake to Recipharm for an investment of 800 Million INR (approximately 110 million SEK). In addition, Recipharm will have the option to acquire an additional 16% share in Nichepharm during 2021. The new facility that will be established in Dehradun, Uttarakhand in northern India is expected to be fully operational by 2022 and to be approved by the European and other international regulatory agencies.

Thomas Eldered, CEO of Recipharm, said: “Three years after acquiring Nitin Lifesciences from the Sobti family, we have confirmed our initial views that the Indian-based operations offer high-level expertise and low-cost options for drug development and manufacturing. We have been impressed with Nitin’s strong financial performance on the domestic market as well as with export activities to emerging markets. This is the outcome of Nitin being well positioned at the high-quality end of this market segment, allowing it to saturate its production capacity with available demand.

“We are seeing a strong demand from Europe and US for various sterile formulation services which would otherwise potentially trigger material investments in our European facilities. There is also a growing demand from countries such as Russia and Latin America that Nitin cannot necessarily fulfil today. In short, there is a great opportunity to combine our capabilities and expertise in Europe and India to build a new facility dedicated to injectable formulations to supply demand from Europe and overseas territories.”