According to reports in the Indian press as part of the plan Dishman will expand its active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) portfolio by 30 molecules this year and has already filed some 20 or so drug master files.
Chairman JR Vyas told the Business Standard that: "We have taken a two way approach in APIs, from being just a CRAMS player we have now become a CRAMS and API player. We are planning to launch 60 generic APIs by the end of the 2013-14 financial year.”
He added that the firm has a 60-strong team of scientists working on the ‘new’ generic APIs that include products for the antiseptic, anaesthetic, laxative, anti-diabetic, anti-fungal, diuretic, analgesic, anti-ulcer segments.
News of the plan follows just weeks after Dishman announced its rosuvastatin-focused collaboration with Liverpool, UK-based chemistry firm Redx Pharma, in move that was also designed to expand its contracting business.
Chemistry firm Redx specialises in developing APIs that are just different enough from currently available actives – sometimes only one or two oxidation states removed - to be patentable as ‘new’ actives.
Under the deal Dishman will use Redx’s tech for the synthesis of statins in a deal that the UK firm’s CEO, Neil Murray, predicted would “create substantial revenues.”
“We are delighted to be able to offer our customers access to Redx Pharma's technology and thus create opportunities for the pharmaceutical companies we serve” commented Christian Dowdeswell, Commercial Director Dishman Group.
He added that: “This deal fits very neatly into Dishman Group's core principle of investment and innovation and ensures that we can continue to offer high value, high quality products to our customers into the future.