IDPL expands range in rebound

State-owned Indian Drugs and Pharmaceuticals Ltd, which is awaiting Cabinet approval for a rehabilitation package has on its own revamped its operations by launching new products and also trading in 50 other products as it tries to boost sales in a bid to inch back to profitability.

State-owned Indian Drugs and Pharmaceuticals Ltd, which is awaiting Cabinet approval for a rehabilitation package has on its own revamped its operations by launching new products and also trading in 50 other products as it tries to boost sales in a bid to inch back to profitability.

HT Image

But a long road lies ahead for the company that has Rs. 5,000 crore in past liabilities to clear. CMD Jayashree Gupta told Hindustan Times the company has also cut costs and made an operating profit of Rs 4 crore in 2007-08 and Rs 6 crore in 2008-09.

Earlier this week, IDPL entered the manufacture of surgical consumables and disposables such as bandages, gauges, disposable syringes and cotton.

Among IDPL’s new products are small sachets of the oral rehydration salt (ORS) that the government uses in its disease control programme, an emergency contraceptive pill and a digestive pill.

In Hyderabad, IDPL is in talks with Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation to set up an international pharma city.

“We have around 800 acres of land in Hyderabad of which half will used to set up an international pharma city that will contain incubation centres, common research & development facilities and other industry requirements,” Gupta said.

She said IDPL plans a manufacturing plant in the remaining land, but that would depend on the rehabilitation package expected from the government.

IDPL was declared a sick company and was referred to the Board for the Industrial and Financial Reconstruction (BIFR) in 1992.