SCHOTT KAISHA has recently inaugurated its Jambusar facility in India. In what way will this new facility cater to company’s needs in India and overseas?
| Kairus Dadachanji |
SCHOTT KAISHA’s state-of-the-art facility enables us to help Indian pharmaceutical companies to meet increasingly sophisticated market demands in India in terms of quality, innovation and differentiation.
The new facility in Jambusar is India’s first completely automated pharma packaging plant. It uses high-end robotic feeding technology for tube- loading, fully in-line automatic process and high-precision camera inspection systems. This guarantees an extremely efficient and reliable production process of consistent quality, underlining our commitment to the international good manufacturing practice (GMP) standards.
India’s pharma market enjoys sustained, strong growth which is directly proportionate to the demand for locally manufactured primary packaging. By steadily advancing with the Indian pharma industry and therefore understanding the specific needs and challenges of the Indian market, we have already emerged as one of the leading pharma packaging companies in India.
The new facility enables SCHOTT KAISHA to help customers achieve their own growth and quality objectives in India. This Greenfield investment increases the SCHOTT KAISHA production capacity by 50 per cent to around 2.4 billion ampoules and vials per year.
India is already among the top 20 pharma exporting countries and the exports have grown significantly. Drugs manufactured in India are delivered to more than 200 countries including the US, the UK and countries of the EU. The industry is boosted by global exports from India’s state-of-the-art pharma manufacturers. SCHOTT KAISHA is keen to support the nation’s success with state-of-the-art packaging solutions.
All this sets new standards in India and enhances SCHOTT KAISHA’s competitive advantage substantially.
How much has been invested to construct this facility? Is there a scope for further investment in the same plant? If yes, will the investment be made in the same product category?
India is a focus market of high strategic importance for us and we are growing together with our partners and customers. Therefore, SCHOTT KAISHA invested more than Rs 136 crores in this facility. The plant in Jambusar has 20 production lines for ampoules and 16 for vials, with scope for further expansion. The facility is housed in an area of 20 acres with ample room to construct further production modules in parallel with the increasing demand of customers. The growing importance of this market is the reason why we are already planning to expand the plant in the near future. We are currently working on the exact timing of the next investment phases and scope of expansion. For other products too, we are closely monitoring market conditions. If there is appropriate requirement we will certainly invest.
How much revenue of SCHOTT KAISHA comes from India operations?
We produce in India for the Indian market. As part of our corporate policy, the SCHOTT Group does not disclose revenues of its business units. But to give you an impression – SCHOTT KAISHA turnover increased almost threefold since 2008. This represents an average growth of 25 per cent per annum. SCHOTT KAISHA is confident of exceeding overall market growth also in the future.
Is India the only country where SCHOTT has chosen the business partnership route? If not, kindly give details of your other alliances.
I can answer this question on behalf of our joint venture partner SCHOTT: Regarding their pharma systems business, the international SCHOTT Group has also established a joint venture with Xinkang in China that has recently started operations. Beyond this, SCHOTT Pharmaceutical Systems operates almost 800 production lines and 17 plants for pharma packaging as well as five tubing plants in 14 countries worldwide. They are producing more than nine billion syringes, vials, ampoules, cartridges and special articles of tubing glass or polymer.
What are the current challenges for Indian and global packaging manufacturers?
The biggest challenge we face is to keep up with the extraordinary demand of the market. As India’s pharma market grows in size, the demand for better packaging is growing. This is also a main reason why we have set up an extra plant with considerable expansion plans to grow in parallel to the demand.
Due to the sheer size of the country logistic challenges cannot be overlooked. That is why the plant in Jambusar is situated right next to SCHOTT’s tubing facility in order to ensure timely and efficient supply of the most important base material- world market leading SCHOTT FIOLAX tubes.
In addition to this, we have an excellent Indian team and our back-up possibilities offered by our production sites situated all over the world, provide flexibility, reliability and security to our partners in India.
Besides India, which other countries would SCHOTT KAISHA like to set up its plants?
SCHOTT KAISHA is an Indian joint venture and will therefore cater primarily to the Indian market. We are part of the international network of SCHOTT Pharmaceutical Systems. As one of the world’s leading suppliers of parenteral packaging for the pharma industry SCHOTT has almost 800 production lines in 14 countries worldwide producing nine billion syringes, vials, ampoules, cartridges and special articles of glass tubing or polymer. SCHOTT is steadily investing and advancing its global footprint.