Recipharm has entered a partnership with Sobti to create production capacity in India for a range of sterile dosage forms. 

The Sobti family’s newly created company, Nichepharm Lifesciences Pvt Ltd. will initially issue an 8% equity stake to Recipharm for an investment of approximately 110 million SEK. Recipharm will have the option to acquire an additional 16% share 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 Commission and other international regulatory agencies.

Thomas Eldered, CEO of Recipharm, said, “Three years after acquiring Nitin Lifesciences Ltd (“Nitin”) from the Sobti family, we have confirmed our initial views that the Indian-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 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 Ltd and Recipharm Pharmaservices Pvt Ltd, will remain unchanged.