New Delhi, September 16:

India’s top traditional medicine manufacturer plans to spend Rs 1.2 billion ($27 million) so it can produce generic versions of cancer drugs that will lose US patent protections in next five to seven years, a company official said on Friday. The move is a shift for Dabur India Ltd, which in the past has primarily produced traditional herbal medicine. The money will go to improving the capacity of the company’s new pharmaceutical arm, Dabur Pharma Ltd, which currently produces some modern medicines.

Dabur Pharma has identified 15 cancer drugs that will go off-patent in the United States over the next five to seven years and is planning to replicate them so it can tap into the lucrative generic drug market, chief financial officer Arun Gupta told Dow Jones Newswires. Gupta didn’t name the drugs, but said their combined US sales currently range between $8 billion and $10 billion. Scores of Indian companies have entered the US market in recent years, selling generic versions of drugs after patents expired.

The company will file Abbreviated New Drug Applications, or ANDAs as they are referred to in the industry, for the medicines when they go off-patent, and has a deal to market the drugs with Hospira, the hospital division of Abbott Laboratories, based in Abbott Park, Illinois.

“Once the approvals are in place, we will need more capacity,” Gupta said, adding that it takes 12-18 months to get the approvals. The company plans to build a new plant in Himachal Pradesh and expand capacity at its plant in West Bengal by March 2007, Gupta said. It also has a plant in Britain.

Oncology medications and bulo drugs contributed 63 per cent to the company’s sales of 2.35 billion rupees ($55 million) in the year that ended March 31.