Panacea Biotec to spend Rs 100 cr on Capex plans this fiscal

Mumbai, May 04 (UNI) Panacea Biotec Ltd is set to invest over Rs 100 crore on capital-expenditure(CAPEX) plans during the current fiscal.

The Capex plan envisages Rs 45 crore new state-of-the-art vaccine plant at Baddi in Himachal Pradesh, and of the remaining Rs 55 crore bulk of it goes towards new equipments at the two R&D centres and for manufacturing facilities, said Panacea Biotec Joint Managing Director Rajesh Jain.

Replying to a poser at the press conference here, Mr Jain said ''We have already raised US0 million in February this year, which will take care of the company's capex plans.'' Responding to another query, Mr Jain said the Baddi vaccine plant will have a total capacity of 800 million dosage.

Meanwhile, the company has forged a collaboration with Nederlands Vaccin Instituut (NVI) for supply of bulk Inactivated Polio Vaccines (IPV). Under the agreement, NVI would supply bulk IPV, which would be used by the company in the manufacture of finished IPV and a number of IPV based combination vaccines.

It would register the products both in India and across the globe barring Netherlands, Denmark, Norway and Finland.

Commenting on this landmark collaboration, Mr Jain said, ''Panacea Biotec has played a pivotal role in polio eradication by supplying Trivalent and Monovalent polio vaccines to UNICEF. PBL has taken a lead step in the field of pediatric immunization with this collaboration to meet the global demand for IPV.'' Panacea Biotec, Mr Jain continued, is committed to heal the world with innovative vaccines to prevent/treat diseases for which no vaccines are currently available. The estimated demand of IPV is around 150 million doses and is likely to increase to 800 million doses by 2011 depending upon various scenarios. The expected market size is around USD 800 million to 1 billion. This collaboration will substantially enhance Panacea Biotec's impact, scale and size of business.

UNI SN PP VKG1803