Aurobindo Pharma has announced an acquisition in Netherlands, and the US FDA approvals for generics.

Director of Aurobindo Pharma, Lanka Srinivas says that Netherlands acquisition is a part of our European roadmap. He adds that the compan is looking forward to a fantastic growth and expects turnover in formulation business to be anywhere between Rs 750 to Rs 1000 crore next year, in addition to the API business.

Excerpts from CNBC - TV18’s exclusive interview with Lanka Srinivas:

Q: What do these acquisitions mean? Lets take the Netherlands acquisition in particular, what kind of sales are you expecting from Netherlands in FY08?

A: The Netherlands acquisition is a part of our European roadmap, because we have bought a company called Milpharm in the UK last year and this year we just bought this Netherlands company so it gives us an opportunity to enter the European markets as Milpharm is  growing at about 35-40% in the UK. Similarly I also expect Pharmacin to grow substantially based on our product portfolio.

Q: If you could take us through the cost and the kind of money that you will be making in one year?

A: It is very difficult to predict but all these are profit making companies with a very handsome growth rate. The compounded annual growth rate of Pharmacin is about 30% and with the back up of Aurobindo it should have more than 50% growth rate.

Q: What sort of revenues does Pharmacin currently have, and post integration of Pharmacin with your company, how much revenue will you garner from your European businesses for FY08?

A: Currently Pharmacin is close to about 7 million Euros at this point in time per annum. Both Pharmacin and our entire Europe operation are doing quite well. I expect they should be somewhere around USD 60-80 million next year.

Q: Given your European roadmap can we expect more acquisitions in 2007?

A: Yes, because that is our game plan as we would like to have a marketing platform in several countries so the time taken to establish the operations gets reduced.

Q: Some more details like how many countries or how many companies are you looking at?

A: We are currently looking at another three acquisitions in the European market so in total it should be about 5 marketing platforms.

Q: How many ANDAs and drug master files have you have filed at the moment and what does the roadmap look like in the next six months?

A: We have filed more than 100 drug master files in the US itself and I think  we hold the worlds largest number of drug master files. We have filed close to about 80 ANDAs and these have been filed in the last 2.5 years.

Q: You have received USFDA approval for Amoxicillin and for Bisoprolol. How big are these drugs and what is the marketing capacity and capabilities of these drugs?

A: Basically Bisoprolol is a very interesting niche product. It is about USD 50- 60 million market with very limited players in that market place,so that is a very interesting opportunity and we are leaders in Amoxicillin in most parts of the world, so I look forward for a reasonable market share in that product also.

Q: With so much happening how much do you hope to close FY08 with in terms of revenue and profit?

A:We are looking forward for a fantastic growth .We are doing every month more than Rs 50- Rs 60 crore of formulation turnover. I expect that in next year we should be anywhere between Rs 750 to Rs 1000 crore in the formulation business itself in addition to the API business.

Q: How is your tie up with Citadel progressing, there have been rumours to the contrary in the market?

A:  We have terminated the joint venture quite sometime back.