Pharma Companies in Chennai: an overview
Some of Chennai's drug companies are among the oldest in India. Amrutanjan has made pain and congestion balms since 1893. Tablets (India) was incorporated in Chennai in 1938 and still has its head office on Marshalls Road. Apex Laboratories, which began in 1978, makes oral solids, liquids and topical products and is best known for its zinc and nutraceutical brands.
Much of the city's manufacturing sits in government-developed industrial estates. Strides runs a plant in the SIDCO Pharmaceutical Complex at Alathur in Chengalpattu district. SaiMirra Innopharm makes formulations in the SIDCO estate at Ambattur. Caplin Point and Apex both have offices in the Perungudi industrial estate, and Malladi Drugs is based in the Thiru Vi Ka estate at Guindy. Further south, HLL Biotech's Integrated Vaccine Complex at Chengalpattu was set up under a Government of India mandate.
Many of these companies sell mainly abroad. Orchid Pharma started in Chennai in 1992 as a fully export-oriented unit for cephalosporin antibiotics. Caplin Point began in 1990 making ointments and creams, and now supplies Latin America and Francophone Africa and has a growing presence in regulated markets such as the US and EU. Malladi runs an R&D centre near Chennai and makes APIs at Ranipet.