Recipharm expands Indian injectable dosage form capabilities through new partnership

Recipharm will enter a project together with Sobti family aimed at creating production capacity in India for a range of sterile dosage forms.

The Sobti family’s newly created company Nichepharm Lifesciences (Nichepharm) will initially issue an eight per cent equity stake to Recipharm for an investment of Rs 800 million (approximately 110 million SEK). In addition, Recipharm will have the option to acquire an additional 16 per cent share in Nichepharm during 2021. The new facility that will be established in Dehradun, Uttarakhand, in northern India, is expected to be fully operational by 2022 and to be approved by the European and other international regulatory agencies.

Thomas Eldered, CEO, Recipharm, said, “Three years after acquiring Nitin Lifesciences (Nitin) from the Sobti family, we have confirmed our initial views that the India-based operations offer high-level expertise and low-cost options for drug development and manufacturing. We have been impressed with Nitin’s strong financial performance on the domestic market as well as with export activities to emerging markets. This is the outcome of Nitin being well-positioned at the high-quality end of this market segment, allowing it to saturate its production capacity with available demand. The excellent leadership of Dr Chetan Sobti, as CEO and Nitin Sobti, as COO, are also key factors in the company’s success.

“We are seeing a strong demand from Europe and the US for various sterile formulation services which would otherwise potentially trigger material investments in our European facilities. There is also a growing demand from countries such as Russia and Latin America that Nitin cannot necessarily fulfil today. In short, there is a great opportunity to combine our capabilities and expertise in Europe and India to build a new facility dedicated to injectable formulations in order to supply demand from Europe and overseas territories.”

The operations and ownership in Recipharm’s current Indian subsidiaries, Nitin Lifesciences and Recipharm Pharmaservices, will remain unchanged.