Natco forays into agrichem, to invest Rs 100 cr in greenfield plant at Nellore

Hyderabad: City-based pharma player Natco Pharma on Friday announced its foray into the agrichemicals segment with plans to set up a greenfield niche agrichemicals manufacturing facility at Nellore in Andhra Pradesh at an investment of Rs 100 crore.
The company said it expects to commission the facility, which will manufacture agrichemical technical and formulation products, by the end of 2019.
“Natco strongly believes that its pharma strength in chemistry coupled with an acumen towards selection of niche molecules would differentiate itself in the agrichemical space as well. Natco expects the facilities in Nellore district to be commissioned by end of 2019 with a total capital expenditure of Rs 100 crore,” Natco Pharma said in a regulatory filing.
Talking about the diversification, Natco Pharma vice-chairman and CEO Rajiv Nannapaneni told TOI that the company hopes to get its agrichemical business up and running in the next couple of years and will be using internal accruals to fund the investment in the greenfield manufacturing plant.
Pointing out that pharma and agri-chem require the same skill sets, Nannapaneni said: “If you look at players like Bayer, it does both pharma and agri-chem. The same skills are required as pharma and agrichem is a natural extension given our strength in chemistry.”
Nannapaneni, however, refused to divulge any further details about the company’s latest foray and how it intends to go about it.
Natco Pharma, which has been primarily focused on generics in the oncology space, diversified its product portfolio in 2017 to include cardiology and diabetology.
In fact, it had, in November 2018 said that it plans to “enter new attractive segments while exploring growth through inorganic strategies in the long term”.
It had also said that in the near term it will be intensifying focus on the domestic cardiology and diabetology segment by focusing on niche molecules with high entry barriers while maintaining its leadership position in the oncology and Hepatitis-C segments in India. Natco was the first to launch Argatroban injection and Dabigatran in India for patients suffering from thrombosis syndrome, the company had said.
Natco Pharma, which was set up in 1981, has over 4,830 employees spread across India, US and RoW, with 400 employees dedicated to R&D. The company clocked revenues of Rs 2,242 crore for fiscal ended March 2018.