By NNN-Bernama,
Kuala Lumpur : India’s Malladi Drugs & Pharmaceutical Ltd will invest up to 300 million USD over the next three to five years to set up its global “one-stop shop” in Malaysia, according to the Malaysian Biotechnology Corp (BioTech).
Malladi is an Active Pharma Ingredient (API) manufacturer based in Chennai in south India while BioTech is the lead government agency for promoting the biotechnology industry in Malaysia.
BioTech chief executive officer Iskandar Mizal Mahmood said here Tuesday Malladi had yet to pick a site but would be encouraged to locate at one of the economic corridors in the country, in line with Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s call for those areas to be driven by biotechnology.
“The investment entails the development of the entire value chain within the contract manufacturing facility, starting from the API formulation,” he told reporters after the opening of BioMalaysia 2008 biotechnology exchibition and conference here.
Earlier, Malladi handed over a business plan for its operations here to BioTech. In it, the firm says its aims to expand into other areas of service offerings as a contract research organization in Malaysia, including for the segment of oncology and steroids, and beta-lactums.
At the same event, the Economic Planning Unit of the government of the northeastern state of Kelantan was awarded a one million Ringgit (one USSD = about 3.5 Ringgit) biotech satellite grant to undertake biotechnology development with the Malaysian Science University.
Meanwhile, Abcar Asia, a unit of Abcar France ,which owns the technology to extract herbs and fruits to produce wellness products, has exchanged documents with Global Sunshine Biotech of Malaysia for the licensing and transferring of technology between both entities.
The event also witnessed the exchange of documents between South Korea’s Insect Biotech with Malaysia’s Enzyme Technology Sendirian Berhad whereby the latter would receive the former’s technology for the production of industrial enzymes.
Both firms would work together to establish an industrial enzyme manufacturing facility in Malaysia, and additionally, Insect Biotech would carry out further research and development on new industrial enzyme molecules.