Japan’s Otsuka already had a plant in Thailand making nutraceuticals for that country. It will now build a second plant, moving into saline for Thailand and to export to other Asian countries.
Otsuka, along with a Thai investor that has yet to be identified, will invest 900 million baht ($26 million) to build the facility, the Bangkok Post reports, citing Shinsuke Yuasa, president of Thai Otsuka Pharmaceutical.
"The company supplies 40% of the saline solution in Thailand and also ranks among the top three medical equipment and pharmaceutical producers, and provides nutraceutical products to several hospitals in Thailand and other countries in the region," Yuasa said.
The exec expects exports from the new facility to reach 30% of production in the next few years. Otsuka, which is best known in the U.S. for its antipsychotic drug Abilify, says some of the new plant’s production will be targeted at markets that include China, India, the Middle East and Asean member countries.
This investment comes after Otsuka in 2014 spent about 625 baht ($18 million) to build a nutraceuticals facility in Samut Sakhon.
Thailand is becoming a country in which Western drugmakers also are taking more interest. In 2014, Actavis paid $100 million to buy Thai generics company Silom, picking up a plant that made both pills and sterile drugs. That business now belongs to Teva Pharmaceutical ($TEVA), which got it in its recent $40 billion deal with Allergan to buy Actavis, Allergan's generics business.
- read the Bangkok Post story
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