New Delhi: Aurobindo Pharma has completed the installation of its plant in China and is planning to commission it in the first quarter of next fiscal, said Santhanam Subramanian, Chief Financial Officer of the company.
“The China plant has been fully installed and is expected to be commissioned in Q1 FY25. We are in the process of manufacturing the exhibit batches,” he said, adding: “We will be filing around five products from the China plant and will start with the European dispatches because it takes quite a lot of time to get the approval from Chinese regulators.”
Aurobindo has lined up commissioning of three plants, including the one in China. A part of its US Raleigh facility was commissioned in March and the remaining is expected to get commissioned in due course. The Lyfius plant, which will produce Pen-G, is expected to be commissioned by the end of 2023.
R&D expense
Aurobindo Pharma is also stepping up its focus on research and development (R&D). During FY23, the company’s R&D expenditure was around 6-6.5 per cent. “We would be incurring around ₹400 crore per quarter… irrespective of how the turnover is going to be,” the CFO said.
The company is now conducting a phase clinical research study for a biosimilar product and the plant is also expected to be commissioned in due course. The biosimilars business is expected to contribute to margin enhancement for the drugmaker from FY25. New pipeline approvals will include high margin new generation product categories like peptides, biosimilars, etc.
