Max-GB To Double Penicillin Output

Max-GB, the Indian joint venture between Gist-Brocades of theNetherlands and Max India, is to increase production of semi-synthetic penicillins from 500 tons to 1,000 tons per year. Local drug industry observers are forecasting that the move will lead to a price war in a segment of the market already affected by undercutting of prices. Max-GB said it had revised earlier expansion plans which were to have taken output to 750 tons.

Mr R Nakra, the company's managing director, said the expanded production based at Toansa in the Punjab would go on stream in the third quarter of 1998, and will be in direct competition with Kopran, which is also planning to increase output to 1,000 tons per year, and Aurobindo Pharma.

Mr Nakra added that Max-GB, which currently makes ceftriaxone and cefotaxime, was looking at the cephalosporin family for further product launches and would make a decision on these by mid-1998. Yearly sales for the period to March 31, 1998, are estimated to reach approximately $76 million.