Indian Immuno plans to double output capacity

HYDERABAD: After moving to human vaccines from solely providing animal vaccines, Indian Immunologicals (IIL) is on an expansion mode. IIL, which is the subsidiary of the National Dairy Development Board, has planned a capital expenditure of Rs 160 crore for its expansion plans.

The investment will help the vaccine manufacturer to double its capacity. The company, which has a tie-up with Pfizer to market its foot and mouth disease (FMD) vaccine in Eastern Asian countries, is also looking at more partners for marketing its own brand of vaccines in other countries.

Its capacity expansion plans comes at a time when the government has decided to cover all districts of the country under the prevention of foot and mouth disease programme in the next five-year plan. For these initiatives, there would be an additional requirement of 300 million doses of FMD vaccines.

According to a senior company official, IIL is planning to acquire about 100 acres in the SP Biotech Park in Hyderabad to meet its expansion needs. The company is also making an oil-based vaccine to treat FMD in pigs, which caters to the markets in Vietnam and Malaysia.