Pharma Companies in Kerala: an overview
Most of Kerala's medicine makers work in Ayurveda, and several are very old. Arya Vaidya Sala at Kottakkal dates from 1902 and makes more than 530 classical formulations at factories in Kottakkal and Kanjikode in Kerala and at Nanjangud in Karnataka. Sitaram Ayurveda was founded in Thrissur in 1921 and describes itself as India's first Ayurvedic joint-stock company. Vaidyaratnam began at Ollur near Thrissur in 1941, and Kerala Ayurveda, founded in Aluva in 1945, is listed on the BSE.
Thrissur district has several of the larger units. Oushadhi, owned by the Government of Kerala, began in 1941 as the Sree Kerala Varma Ayurveda Pharmacy, became a company in 1975 and moved its factory to Kuttanellur in 1991. It has since added a second unit at Muttathara in Thiruvananthapuram district. Kandamkulathy Vaidyasala is at Kuzhur near Mala. Further east, Nagarjuna makes its medicines at Kalayanthani near Thodupuzha, and Sreedhareeyam set up its medicine unit at Koothattukulam in 2008, next to its eye hospital.
The main maker of modern healthcare products is HLL Lifecare, a central public sector company incorporated in 1966 and based in Thiruvananthapuram. Its first plant, at Peroorkada, began production in 1969. HLL added a hospital-products plant at Akkulam in 1994, a condom plant in the Cochin Special Economic Zone at Kakkanad in 2004 and a moulding unit in the Rubber Park near Perumbavoor in 2014. Its pharmaceutical lines are made outside the state, at Kanagala in Karnataka and at Indore. Arjuna Natural, started near Aluva in 1990, exports botanical extracts.