Israel’s Teva Pharmaceutical Industries is reportedly planning to invest over 4,000 crores, or over $1 billion to acquire Indian drug companies and set up manufacturing facilities in the country.
The Business Standard newspaper says that the investment is planned for the next two years. Around $250-$300 million will be utilised for facilities and the rest will go on acquisitions.
Recently, Teva bought over 100 acres of land near Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh, to set up active pharmaceutical ingredient manufacturing facilities which the firm hopes will match the production capacity of domestic players such as Ranbaxy, Cipla, Dr Reddy’s, Sun Pharma and Wockhardt. Teva considers India to be an interesting geographical region and is looking to broaden its activities in the country, Shir Altay, a company spokesperson, told the newspaper.
Teva already has an R&D centre in New Delhi which it started a couple of years ago but Business Standard cites “merchant banking sources” as saying that the firm has been aiming at a major acquisition in India for the past three years. No deal has been reached yet, which is probably due to the high valuations on Indian drugmakers at the moment, but targets are thought to include Cipla, Aurobindo, Matrix, Orchid and Saraca Laboratories.
