Aurobindo boosts CMO wave in Asia

Indian API maker Aurobindo Pharma has become the latest scrambler for the manufacturing services bounty expected from a morphing drug industry model. Whether or not that bounty will actually enrich the multiplying service-provider population appears at this point to be of less concern than the preparation, positioning, and posturing for it.

The newly formed AuroSource division will vie for part of the 43 percent rise in custom manufacturing projected for India by consultancy Ernst & Young last summer. AuroSource offerings include customized services for APIs, intermediates, pre-formulations and formulations. The division also provides scale-up services and intermediates prep. In addition, manufacturing support, regulatory services and R&D are part of its mix, as are process optimization, purification, and alternate processes.

Aurobindo has 15 manufacturing facilities for both APIs and finished dosage forms, ten of which have passed FDA scrutiny. And that's with the regulator increasingly watchful of both contract and sponsor drug-making facilities in India, as we've reported.

Hindustan is not the only nation jumping on the contract-services bandwagon. Market-watcher Frost & Sullivan notes that looming to the northeast, CMO multiplication is accompanying the overall rise in pharma manufacturing in China.

- here's the Aurobindo report
- see the China CMO article

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