Glaxo India's official spokesperson, in response to a query, told The Financial Express: "The viability and desirability of any site is a subject of almost continuous evaluation. All formulation factories are now under the overall responsibility of the Global Manufacturing and Supply Organisation (GMSO). The GMSO is evaluating all sites and accordingly Worli is also being evaluated by them, as part of the process. To comment on the future of this site at this juncture will be speculation". Specifics on products manufactured at this unit and the employee strength could, however, not be got.

The British giant, now in the midst of a merger with SmithKline Beecham, had created a worldwide manufacturing and supply organisation within Glaxo Wellcome Plc, expected to be a model formanufacturing excellence and aimed at long-term objectives.

The company in early last year said, that the key drivers of this change are "the need to lower manufacturing costs, create the ability to handle greater complexity and variety of product offerings and ensure compliance with increasingly more stringent regulatory requirements. It had added, that India features in the planned network of manufacturing and supply sites, though the "determination of the extent of use of these sites for regional/world supply is still under examination". Mr Thomas, at the AGM had said, "Mumbai has become exceedingly uneconomic for labour intensive operations.