New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to inaugurate the antibiotic Penicillin-G plant in Andhra Pradesh, three decades after the country’s last plant was closed.
Industry executives told ET that Hyderabad-based Aurobindo Pharma AP has cleared the decks to start production of penicillin G at its plant in Kakinada.
The company has started small batch production and will start full production of 300 metric tonnes by the end of this year, sources said.
Penicillin G is used to make many antibiotics. India stopped production of Pan-G nearly three decades ago and is dependent on China for it.
The Penicillin-G (Pen-G) facility, located at SEZ in Kakinada, Andhra Pradesh, has a production capacity of 15,000 tonnes per annum and also 1.8 lakh tonnes of glucose, while the 6-amino penicillin acid plant has the capacity to produce. 3,600 tonnes annually, the drugmaker said in an earlier statement.
The company said the penicillin G, glucose, 6-APA and granular products will be for captive use, domestic supply and export, while the vials/ampules plant will be for export markets.
About 30,000 metric tonnes of penicillin are imported from China, industry insiders said.
“China has ensured manufacturing shutdowns across the world, including India, due to massive government support in terms of subsidies, infrastructure support, ease of doing business in the regulatory landscape (EODB) and cheap labour,” an expert said.
In 2021 the government launched the PLI scheme to promote domestic production of APIs or KSMs (key starting materials), expanding its scope to encourage export of these raw materials for drug manufacturers.
The plan was announced for critical fermentation products, including penicillin G, aphalosporanic acid 7-ACA (used to make antimicrobial drugs), clavulanic acid (used to treat bacterial infections), and erythromycin thiocyanate (anti-infectives). . India’s pharmaceuticals industry is the third largest in the world, but is dependent on China for critical raw materials.
The PLI scheme seeks to reduce this dependency and ensure adequate local supply of bulk drugs and APIs, industry officials said.
Along with this, Mumbai-based Kinwan Pvt Ltd has also started manufacturing clavulanic acid, a blockbuster active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) that goes into making Augmentin antibiotic.
