Karnataka govt invites Jubilant and Siemens to explore investment opportunities in pharma and medical devices

Bengaluru, May 27, 2022:

The Karnataka government has invited the Jubilant Group and Siemens to explore the investment opportunities in pharma and medical devices in the state.

The two companies have already invested substantially in the state. The Jubilant Group has two facilities in Karnataka. One is the Jubilant Generics in Nanjangud off Mysuru and the other is Jubilant Biosys a contract research organisation. In fact, Jubilant Biosys is keen to establish its R&D unit in a 10-acre plot at Devanahalli. Presently, about 9,000 people are working with Jubilant in the State.

In the case of Siemens, the company has a state-of-the-art facility for manufacture of magnetic imaging and diagnostics and an R&D project where it has invested Rs. 1,300 crore. The company has positioned this facility to be important as it is among its innovation hubs globally in 2020. The German medical equipment major now plans to lay the foundation stone for setting up a medical equipment manufacturing unit at Bommasandra in September 2022 to cater to the domestic market.

The State government has assured the company of special incentives to set up its production unit for modern medical equipment, it said, adding that representatives of Siemens and the State government also discussed the 'Beyond Bengaluru' project to draw investments to Tumakuru, Hubballi-Dharwad and Mysuru cities.

These developments came in during the World Economic Forum (WEF) meet being held in Davos, Switzerland by the Karnataka chief minister Basavaraj Bommai who had held talks with heads of Jubilant Group and Siemens among others. The investments sought by the state is with an objective to increase export revenues and employment opportunities for the qualified workforce in the state, stated the chief minister's office.

Chief minister Bommai made a pitch to attract promising investments by the pharma and medical device companies and explained the incentive package being offered by the State to draw the more investors to set up their units here.

Industries minister Murugesh Nirani, Additional Chief Secretary in the Department of Commerce and Industry E V Ramana Reddy, CM's Principal Secretary N Manjunath Prasad, Commissioner of Industries department Gunjan Krishna and others were present at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Industry observers also noted that Karnataka has not been able to attract investments in pharma. This is despite having access to a large pool of scientific and technology professionals.  The Union government production linked incentive (PLI) announced in 2021 too has not garnered any greenfield projects in pharmaceuticals barring Wipro GE Healthcare’s new medical devices manufacturing plant in Bengaluru built under the PLI scheme. The facility was constructed within a year of time frame early this year at an investment of Rs. 100 crore and is the company’s fourth production plant in India. It manufactures CT machines, cath lab equipment, ultrasound scanners, patient monitoring solutions, ECG machines and ventilators. Another company expected to benefit from the PLI scheme is Biocon which has slated an investment as it gets Rs. 250 crore. PharmaBiz