Neuland Laboratories to Invest $20 Million in Hyderabad Process-Development Facility

Neuland Laboratories said it will invest $20 million to open a dedicated process-development laboratory and integrated kilo lab at its Genome Valley campus, a move aimed at strengthening the company’s position in the increasingly competitive market for complex active pharmaceutical ingredient manufacturing.

The 135,000-square-foot facility will be fitted out in phases and is expected to be fully completed by October 2026, according to the company. Neuland said the site is designed exclusively for process development and scale-up work, rather than mixed-use discovery or manufacturing support.

When complete, the expansion will increase Neuland’s process-development workforce to more than 500 scientists, giving the Hyderabad-based contract development and manufacturing organization more capacity to support pharmaceutical and biotechnology customers moving drug substances from early-stage development toward commercial production.

Facility Targets Faster API Scale-Up

The project underscores growing demand for specialized CDMO services as drugmakers seek partners capable of developing reliable, scalable processes for complex APIs and peptides. Neuland said the integrated non-GMP kilo labs will allow scientists to test process performance at larger scales without moving work to separate sites or competing for GMP manufacturing capacity.

The company said the design should let development teams continue optimization while generating scale-up data in parallel, potentially reducing delays between laboratory development and plant readiness.

The center will include AI-driven route scouting, parallel synthesis and electronic laboratory notebooks, along with a centralized analytical wing. Neuland said the site will also feature dedicated areas for process engineering, polymorph studies, process safety and advanced flow chemistry, as well as five peptide labs and three purification labs.

Investment Focused on Fit-Out

Saharsh Davuluri, Neuland’s vice chairman and managing director, said the company is using an existing building, meaning the full $20 million investment will go toward fitting out the facility rather than constructing the shell.

“The end goal is to give clients parallel development and earlier manufacturability insight from the outset,” Davuluri said, adding that the site will use equipment intended to simulate large-scale reactions at smaller scale.

Automated workflows, predictive modeling and data-driven route selection are expected to help researchers identify weak synthetic routes earlier and reduce redundant testing, the company said.

Kilo Lab Bridges Bench and Plant Work

The kilo lab will be equipped with 20- to 250-liter all-glass reactors, cryogenic capability and multiple filtration systems. Neuland said the lab is intended to bridge bench chemistry and plant operations so manufacturing considerations are built into processes earlier.

The expansion comes as Neuland seeks to deepen its role as an API-focused CDMO for pharmaceutical and biotech companies developing complex molecules. Davuluri said the new labs are designed to support scale-up from Phase I through Phase IV and help customers prepare for commercial production earlier in a project’s life cycle.

For Neuland, the facility represents both a capacity expansion and a bid to differentiate itself in a crowded outsourcing market where speed, process reliability and manufacturability have become key selling points for drugmakers weighing external development and manufacturing partners.