Pharma Companies in Bangalore: an overview
Bengaluru's drug industry is older than its software boom. Micro Labs was founded in 1973. AstraZeneca's Indian business was set up in 1979 and still has its headquarters in the city. Biocon began in 1978 with three employees in a rented shed in Koramangala. Himalaya's herbal medicine business traces back to 1930 and now operates from Makali in Bengaluru. Today the city is home to listed drug makers such as Strides Pharma Science and Anthem Biosciences, and to Medreich, which is part of Japan's Meiji Group.
Most production sits in industrial areas on the edge of the city. Bommasandra, off Hosur Road, has Micro Labs' API plant, Anthem's first manufacturing unit and Bal Pharma's registered office. Hikal makes products at Jigani, and Strides has plants in Anekal taluk. Peenya Industrial Area is home to Karnataka Antibiotics & Pharmaceuticals, which is owned jointly by the Government of India and the Government of Karnataka. Peenya is also the Indian base of the Sami-Sabinsa Group, which makes standardised herbal extracts.
The city is also a centre for outsourced drug research and development. Anthem Biosciences was incorporated in 2006 and opened its Bommasandra unit the following year. Jubilant Biosys runs an integrated drug discovery centre in Bengaluru, Aurigene operates a 17-acre R&D campus, and Eurofins Advinus has laboratories in Peenya. Multinationals do research here too: AstraZeneca has run an R&D centre in the city since 2017, covering work from medicinal chemistry to biometrics and patient safety.