December 4, 2014
By Riley McDermid, BioSpace.com Breaking News Editor
Indian state Telangana is hoping to lure global biotech companies to a newly planned, 11,000-acre “pharmaceutical city” that could eventually employ as many as 70,000 people, local officials said Thursday.
The city said in a press release that it is building the specially tailored city specifically for biotech and biopharma firms interested in establishing a presence in the booming Hyderabad neighborhood.
Development officials said that “several” drugmakers have so far “evinced interest” in setting up their “greenfield” operations at the site, which have the potential to employ 70,000 workers eventually. Hyderabad produces nearly a fifth of India’s drug exports, or around Rs 90,000 crore in for fiscal year 2014.
The country’s Economic Times newspaper reported Thursday that as part of the plan, Telangana’s Rashtra Samithi-led government has launched a massive press campaign for India’s “Bulk Drug Capital” with an ambitious, all inclusive development plan replete with laboratories, manufacturing and transportation capabilities.
On Wednesday, biopharma decision makers even took an aerial tour of the proposed site at Mucherla, about 70 km from Hyderabad, though none have officially signed on to the project.
“A team of top executives of Hyderabad-headquartered pharmaceutical firms including Dr. Reddy’s , Aurobindo PharmaBSE, Hetero Drugs and Virchow Labs accompanied Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao,” said the Economic Times.
