India's Tata Group pharma R&D unit Advinus to double drug discovery projects

India-based Advinus Therapeutics, the pharma R&D wing of the Tata Group, has earmarked investment ranging between 20 billion rupees ($430 million) and 30.0 billion rupees to fuel its expansion plans of its facilities at Pune and Bangalore besides looking at another Greenfield option. The company would tap the private equity investors from within the Group to fund the expansion program. Also the company is looking to garner growth through inorganic route that is likely to be pursued after fiscal 2010, according to a company web posting.

As part of the expansion, the company plans to augment capacity of its Pune center both in terms of infrastructure and human resources. Pune facility which specializes in drug discovery will see expansion in scientific teams so as to support the objective of more than doubling the discovery research projects from the current six to 13. The research programs will not only include the existing studies on metabolic disorders and inflammatory diseases, but address needs of drug development for the aging population to tackle Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, brittle bones, rheumatoid arthritis and multiple modalities affecting the increasing geriatrics.

Plans foray into formulations