The 400,000 square meter site, which is in Cha You's Cha Ha ER industrial garden district, was purchased by Lotus' subsidiary Liang Fang Pharmaceutical for RNM 39m under an agreement with the local economy commission.
Lotus will spend around RNM 160m on the construction of around 40,000 square meters of manufacturing space at the site and plans to kit it out with approximately RNM 182m worth of drug production equipment.
Under the terms of Lotus' deal with the Cha You authorities, construction must begin by September this year with the plant scheduled to be fully operational by December 2010. The company is expected to seek good manufacturing practice accreditation from the Chinese State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) and other drug regulators before beginning manufacturing operations.
Lotus' president and CEO, Zhongyi Liu, commented that the company: "plans to manufacture a wide range of pharmaceutical products in the new facility, and wants to see [it] become a place in which we develop and manufacture sophisticated products."
The first drugs to be manufactured at the plant will include Lotus' range of medical solutions for the hospital market, including: 0.9 per cent physiological saline injection; hydroxyethyl starch for injection; Qiang Yi Ji starch, a medical corn starch known as O-2-hydeoxyethyl starch; and the anti-thrombotic agent dextran.
The company also plans to manufacture a new range of prescription pharmaceutical products at the facility and has announced its intention to expand its marketing and distribution networks accordingly.
Fiscal '07 momentum maintained
Lotus' full year 2007 results, which were reported earlier this year, revealed that it made a profit of $11.2m on sales of $56.9m. Around 73 per cent, or $141.6m, of its annual turnover came from Lotus' wholesale manufacture and distribution of its own drugs.
Last year's key earners included the vasodilator valsartan, the glaucoma drug brimonidine tartrate, the antibacterial levofloxacin and nicergoline for injection which is used to treat senile dementia, migraines, transient ischemia, platelet hyper-aggregation and macular degeneration. Lotus' contract manufacturing and pharmaceutical raw material processing operations contributed some $9.5m, with its retail pharmacy business providing the remainder of its revenue.
In May, Lotus' unveiled its results for the first quarter of the current fiscal year. The figures suggest that the firm's financial performance has continued to improve through the opening three months of fiscal 2008.
Total revenues for the period ended March 31 were $11m, up 41 per cent on the comparable quarter in 2007, with sale of the firm's own drugs and contract manufacturing activities contributing $9.7m and $1.2m, respectively.