The multinational Pfizer and Shanta had recently entered into a marketing agreement for the latter's r-DNA hepatitis-B vaccine, Shanvac-B, both in the domestic and foreign markets.

"The agreement would extend to the marketing of Shanferon also, which we hope will hit the markets by this time next year", the managing director KI Varaprasad Reddy told journalists visiting the company's new R&D facility on Thursday.

"We are on the verge of completing the animal trials for the anti-cancer drug after which we will be proceeding to human trials", he added.

The anti-cancer drug has been submitted for patenting in US where authorities accepted it for trials and examination after being convinced that the process was new and different.

Meanwhile, the company hopes to nearly double its turnover during the current financial year following its marketing tie-up with Pfizer for parallel sales of its hepatitis-B vaccine, he added.

"We posted a turnover of Rs 33.4 crore for the year 1999-2000 but we hope to notch up at least Rs 60 crore by 31 March 2001", he said.

Shanta Biotech, is credited with the development of India's first indigenous r-DNA based hepatitis-B vaccine. After a stiff battle with competitors in the market for almost two years now, Shanvac-B today commands a 46 per cent share. Reddy hopes this will be consolidated further after the tie-up with Pfizer though the multinational would be marketing the same product under a different brand name, HepaShield.

Apart form the anti-cancer drug, work on which had got delayed by almost eight months owing to disruption of trials at the National Institute of Nutrition here by animal rights activists, the company has in the pipeline a slew of products for launch over the next few years.

"In fact, after the year 2002 we are hopeful we will have one product for launch every year", Reddy said. Apart from hepatitis-C and hepatitis-B vaccines, Shanta was also close to developing a DPT and hepatitis-B vaccine apart from insulin, streptokinase products and monoclonal antibodies.