According to RPG Life Sciences managing director VP Sadekar, the formulation has been developed at the company's R&D centre at Mumbai. The company has developed the formulation which is a 100 per cent bio-equivalent to the international formulation after synthesising the bulk drug, Mr Sadekar added.

The company's cyclosporine formulation will be available to kidney transplant patients in India at a price which will be 40 per cent lower than the competing bulk drugs in the market. The price difference comes as a boon to Indian kidney patients who have either undergone or will be undergoing kidney transplants at one of the 75 transplant centres in India, according to the company. Work on the bulk drug began at RPG Life Sciences Laboratories in Mumbai in 1996. The bulk drug was successfully synthesised in 1999.

As per an estimate, there are around one lakh kidney transplant patients in India. But, every year, only around 2,500 patients are fortunate to have a new kidney. A kidney transplant in India costs around Rs 2 lakh but to ensure that the transplanted kidney functions normally and does not get rejected, an additional Rs 2 lakh per year is spent on post-operative care, specially on medicines.

RPG Life Sciences, with its cyclosporine formulation hopes to substantially cut the cost of post-operative care. The drug was hitherto imported resulting in substantial foreign exchange outflow.

Another player, Panacea Biotech has already been granted international patent for the formulation and RPG Life Sciences has filed for an international patent for their formulation.