Pharma Companies in Kolkata: an overview
Kolkata's drug industry is among the oldest in India. Bengal Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals was founded in 1901 by the chemist Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray, who started the business in a rented house on Upper Circular Road with Rs 700, and it is now a Government of India enterprise. Shree Baidyanath Ayurved Bhawan dates from 1917 and lists a Kolkata office at Ram Bagan. G.D. Pharmaceuticals has sold Boroline since about 1929, and Albert David was incorporated in the city in 1938.
Two of these companies still manufacture inside the city. Bengal Chemicals' Maniktala factory in north Kolkata covers about 20 acres and makes ointments, capsules, tablets and dry powder injections for cephalosporins and beta-lactams, while its Panihati unit, set up in 1920, makes industrial chemicals and disinfectants. Albert David, part of the Kothari group, runs a WHO-GMP unit in Kolkata with a small volume parenteral suite that it says meets US FDA cGMP requirements, and a second plant at Ghaziabad.
Other Kolkata companies range from consumer health to contract research. Dey's Medical has its registered office on Bondel Road, and Emami, whose healthcare brands include Zandu, is headquartered on the EM Bypass at Anandapur. TCG Lifesciences began chemistry operations in Kolkata in 2001 and runs discovery chemistry in the Salt Lake Electronics Complex and biology work at Bengal Intelligent Park in Sector V. Eskag Pharma, a third-party manufacturer, is based in Bidhannagar and makes products at Haridwar.