GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals on Wednesday said it will sell its manufacturing facility in Karnataka to Hetero Labs for Rs 180 crore ($24.5 million).
The sale involves the facility together with the land at Vemgal, said GlaxoSmithKline in a stock market disclosure.
Zinetac, a heartburn medicine generically sold as ranitidine, was one of the main products manufactured at the plant. However, GlaxoSmithKline began to recall the drug globally in 2019 after the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and many other agencies found unacceptable levels of a probable cancer-causing impurity in the drug.
GlaxoSmithKline had announced the sale of the facility last month itself but was pending board approval.
The transaction is expected to be completed by September this year.
Hetero, which was founded in 1993 by BPS Reddy, is engaged in active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), generics, biosimilars, custom pharmaceutical services and branded generics.
It had struck a deal last year with Russia’s RDIF sovereign wealth fund to manufacture over 100 million annual doses of the Russian Sputnik V Covid vaccine.
