The company is in advanced stages of negotiations with a UPS manufacturer each in Europe and China and the deal may come through within a few months, said Mithun Chittilappalli, executive director, V-Guard. At present, the company manufactures only online UPS, targeted at domestic users of computers and electronic gadgets, which contribute only 5-6 per cent to its around Rs 300-crore (Rs 3-billion) turnover.
India's mid-cap software companies may shed as much as 10 per cent of their workforce as revenues and margins have shrunk owing to a global slowdown, analysts say.
MSD Pharmaceuticals, the wholly-owned subsidiary of US-based multinational drug company Merck, has chartered an ambitious growth plan to emerge as one of the top five pharmaceutical companies in India. The Merck subsidiary has plans to step up its research and clinical trial programmes in India, mainly in association with hospitals and universities.
Indian clean technology businesses are finally catching the attention of investor community. New Ventures India - founded by World Resources Institute and CII-Godrej Green Business Centre - aims to fund 50 entrepreneurs in this segment by 2010 with a target investment of $250 million
Anil Ambani-promoted Reliance Power (R-Power) has signed a supplementary power purchase agreement (PPA) with fourteen buyers from seven states for its upcoming 4,000-MW ultra mega power project (UMPP) in Sasan.
Karl-Ludwig Kley, chairman of the executive board, Merck, spoke to Business Standard about the company's plans and how it is weathering the global financial crisis.
Stringent regulatory norms and the financial impact of the global credit crisis on some research companies may hurt half a dozen molecules of Indian companies, such as Glenmark, Nicholas Piramal and Ranbaxy Laboratories, that are close to launch, experts and analysts said.
With India's two leading IT outsourcing companies, Infosys and HCL Technologies, vying to acquire the UK-based consulting firm Axon, SAP implementation is back in focus.
Citec Engineering India, which employs half of Citec's global workforce, is planning to increase its headcount in India from 255 to over 350 by the end of this year, said Martin Strand, CEO, Citec. "We hope to become a significant player in India in the engineering services for power, oil and gas industry, considering the development in the sector. We target to double our Indian business within two years," he said.
The company has already received an approval to spend Rs 50,000 crore (Rs 500 billion) for commercialising two of its biggest gas discoveries in the D6 block located in the KG basin. "In a letter to oil regulator Directorate General of Hydrocarbons, the company has submitted one more development plan for Rs 10,000 crore as additional capex (capital expenditure) for the block.
ADAG has drawn up plans to invest Rs 650 billion in the steel, cement and shipping se three new areas over the next five years. The investment includes Rs 200 billion to set-up a 10 million cement plant and Rs 400 billion towards a steel plant in Jharkhand. The group believes that the three new lines of businesses fit more with RNRL than with other companies under the group, an ADAG source said.
Piramal Life Sciences may become the first company to successfully develop a tuberculosis drug whose leads isolated from the living organisms found in ice brought from the Antarctica region. "(Our) scientists have identified additional leads that will help develop drugs to treat tuberculosis and other infections," revealed Swati Piramal, director, Nicholas Piramal.
ABRPL is working on developing drugs for anaemia, cancer and arthritis, said Bruce Murdoch, chief business officer, Avesthagen. "We are targeting high-end products that are going off-patent and are not working on popular soon-to-be off-patent biotech molecules. We should be able to bring a couple of molecules into the commercialisation stage next year," he said.
The venture, on the lines of Kishore Biyani's Future Ventures India, will focus its investments in the information technology sector, said a source familiar with the development.
The company is in talks with a few private banks and has signed on Citibank as one of the bankers to raise these funds, said sources. HCL Technologies and Citibank declined to comment saying that 'they do not comment on market speculation'.
Plans another $1-billion fund, wants to expand core team in India.
With the telecom industry aiming to increase its rural subscribers base and the central bank asking banks and financial firms to cater to the rural sector, businesses will have to find ways of servicing customers, say analysts. Most of the rural BPOs have a seating capacity of below 100 per centre, as they are situated in remote areas.
The Rs 1,027-crore (Rs 10.27 billion) company has filed 13 abbreviated new drug applications and 22 drug master files with the US Food and Drug Administration and regulatory agencies in Europe for supply of formulations and active pharmaceutical ingredients. Some of the ANDAs challenge innovator patents and the company's strategy will be to partner with established companies in the US and Europe for marketing formulations, said Pranav Amin, director, Alembic.
A slowdown in the global economy and sub-prime crisis in the banking, financial and insurance services sector, its major revenue earners, force the domestic IT industry to take a relook at its hiring strategy.
Terming the report as a 'rehash' of an earlier JAMA article by the same author in 2004, the ministry said it discloses 'a strong bias against Ayurvedic medicines.' The earlier JAMA report, also by Robert B Saper of Boston Medical Centre, had prompted drug regulatory agencies of the US and European countries to repeatedly warn against the use of Indian Ayurvedic products and ban some of them in 2004.
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