Merck may set up bio-production unit in India
NEW DELHI: German healthcare and life sciences firm Merck KGaA may set up a bio-production plant in India to help local companies create biotech drugs and biosimilars (copies of offpatent bio-tech drugs). The plant will be its fourth such globally, a top executive for the company told Mint.
“We would be open to set up a bio-production centre. We have one in France and we have opened one in the US. We will open another one in China. Because we believe that demand in these three geographies is undisputed; as it is in India,” Udit Batra, member of the executive board of Merck KGaA and chief executive of its life science business, which contributes 44% of the firm’s global revenue, said in an interview on Friday.
“We will talk to some government officials. We would want to make sure that we have some local customers who would like to use this facility and we want to make sure that regulations are somehow standardised.”
“I think this is where the discussion needs to happen in a very open way and the government will have to assure us that the regulatory standards will apply to every one,” he added.
Investments for such plants are around $40 million, Batra said; but the plant will provide infrastructure to small biotech and biosimilar firms in India who want to develop a process for a new biosimilar.
The benefits for Merck Life Science would also be significant, Batra said. “Benefit for us is pretty good, economically. Because, if we develop a batch for someone, they are going to use our products.
If the company does open the centre, it would replicate the centres that already exist in Martillac in France and two additional ones that Merck has recently announced in Shanghai and Greater Boston.
Merck Life Science has a Merck Lab in India and has production facilities in Goa and Bengaluru.