Hyderabad, April 26: Omnicare Drugs India Pvt Ltd, a 100 per cent subsidiary of the UAE's largest pharmaceutical manufacturer Neopharma LLC, and ASKA Pharmaceuticals Co, a top pharma brand in Japan, will jointly set up a manufacturing facility in Visakhapatnam.

The two companies on Thursday announced entering into an agreement to establish a joint venture (JV) in India for the purpose of manufacturing and marketing of pharmaceuticals to global market.

The focus of this state-of-the-art facility, which will come up by 2020 at the cost of Rs 350 crore, will be to manufacture oral solid dosage forms, oral liquids and topical preparations. It will have a peak capacity to manufacture 3 billion tablets a year, said a statement.

Neopharma and ASKA Pharma will be taking accreditation from all the major global health regulatory bodies.

The manufacturing plant under this JV agreement will be based at JN Pharma City in Andhra Pradesh's Visakhapatnam. The project will go on floor next month while the operations are likely to start by 2020.

The focus will be to manufacture products targeting chronic therapies in cardiovascular diseases, central nervous system and diabetes along with other drugs from key therapeutic classes targeting Japan and world market.

"The partnership will enable us to transfer skills and knowledge locally," said B.R. Shetty, Neopharma Founder and Chairman.

N. Suresh Kumar, Neopharma COO, said: "We are entering into a strategic relationship with ASKA Pharmaceuticals to accelerate growth in regulated markets of the US and the European Union and in the emerging markets Africa and Asia." 

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New Delhi, May 20: A one-day state mourning will be observed across India on Tuesday as a mark of respect for Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash, the Union Home Ministry has announced.

The national flag will be flown at half-mast on all buildings where it is regularly flown across India and there will be no official entertainment during the period of state mourning.

The Iranian president, the country's foreign minister and several other officials were found dead on Monday, hours after their helicopter crashed in a foggy, mountainous region of the country's northwest, Iran state media reported.

A home ministry spokesperson said Seyyed Ebrahim Raisi, president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and Hossein Amit-Abdollahian, the country's foreign minister, passed away in a helicopter crash.

"As a mark of respect to the departed dignitaries, the government of India has decided that there will be one day's state mourning on May 21 (Tuesday) throughout India," the spokesperson said.

"On the day of mourning, the national flag will be flown at half-mast throughout India on all buildings where the national flag is flown regularly and there will be no official entertainment on the day," the official added.