Hester Pharmaceuticals

Business: Production and marketing of poultry vaccines

Biotech Revenue: Rs 22 crore

CEO: Rajiv Gandhi (MD)

Start-up Year: 1985

Address: 16/10, Devendra Society, Naranpura, Ahmedabad - 380 013

Tel.: 91-79- 27680476 /2250

Fax: 91 79-27681231

Website: www.hesterpharma.com

Hester Pharmaceuticals registered a marginal growth in 2006-07 with its sales touching Rs 22 crore against the previous year's turnover of Rs 20.17 crore. This ISO 9001:2000 certified company is into manufacturing, marketing and distribution of veterinary medicines mainly the live and killed (inactivated) vaccines. Hester markets Synbiotics ELISA kits and also offers seromonitoring services through which it helps producers to evaluate the immune response to administered vaccines.

From 1985 it was involved in the marketing and distribution of veterinary medicines. Having established the manufacturing facility in 1997, Hester has been licensed to produce 11 types of live poultry vaccines and 28 types of killed (Inactivated) poultry vaccines. Production procedures for poultry vaccines based on in-house advanced capabilities are being followed in the areas of virus propagation in specific pathogen-free embryos, tissue culture, batch fermentation of bacteria, lyophilization, emulsion preparation and strict adherence to Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP).

Hester Pharmaceuticals is keen on importing avian influenza vaccines for poultry from Merial, France and the US and also FLU DETECT antigen capture test strip from Synbiotics, USA. It has been expanding its production capacity from 1.2 billion doses of poultry vaccines to 4.8 billion doses so that it can manufacture avian influenza vaccine for the poultry.