Pitted against an array of big names including Hoechst, which is said to hold nearly 80 per cent of the Rs 40 crore human anti-rabies market in the country, Abhayrab is the first human biologicals product from the unit's new facilities at Ooty, the Human Biologicals Institute (HBI).

The HBI which was set up last year at an investment of Rs 12 crore is slated to go commercial middle of next month. Well-known in the animal products market, the Rs 21 crore National Dairy Development Board unit is once again about to do what it did in the veterinary vaccines segment: drive down prices by putting products in reach of people at half the price charged by its competitors.

``Compared to the Rs 200 per vial of Rabipur, the brand nameof the Hoechst vaccine, we are targeting a price of just Rs 100 per vial of Abhayrab,'' Indian Immunologicals chief executive KV Balasubramaniam told The Financial Express.

As against the 14 post-bite doses required of the conventional Simplex vaccine, only six doses are required of the new generation vaccines.

However, they are expensive. Apart from being cheap, Abhayrab does not have any side reactions being a vero-cell based vaccine unlike the others which are chick embryo-based, he said.

Talking of Indian Immunologicals itself and the Rs 600 crore veterinary market in India, Balasubramaniam said the unit has been expanding its product line over the past year and it would be concentrating on the export markets increasingly.

Though it made an export turnover of just Rs 2 crore last year, the target for the current financial year had been fixed at Rs 8 crore which reflected the confidence on growth, he felt. The unit has already bagged a Rs 2 crore order from the Iraqi government under thefood for oil programme, he said.

``We have excess capacity and our costs are very low by at least by half when compared to the multinationals. Thus we are in a better position to compete,'' he said.