Melbourne, Dec 21, 2007 (ABN Newswire) - Australian Biotech Solagran Limited (ASX: SLA) announced at its AGM today that it was on track to commence commercial production of its drug Ropren in January 2008.

Ropren was registered as a new and low side effect pharmaceutical to treat chronic liver disease (hepatitis and cirrhosis) by the Russian Ministry of Health in July this year. Since then, Solagran has been working with its Russian associate SibEX to build a production facility capable of meeting the first wave of demand.

The plant is located in Tomsk, a university city in central Siberia. It will commence production in January. According to Solagran Executive Director Charles Pellegrino, it should be operating at full capacity in March - producing sufficient of the active Bioeffective R to make 60,000 courses of Ropren per year.

Solagran expects demand for Ropren in Russia to reach 300,000 courses per year by 2010 and 1.2 million by 2013. As a result, it is planning to build a second plant capable of producing 600,000 courses annually in a Special Economic Zone set aside by the Russian Government in Tomsk. It is also planning to establish a further facility at a site near Moscow.

Preliminary plans are already in place for further sites in Finland and North America over the next few years, by which time it is expected that Ropren will be approved for use outside Russia.

Solagran also announced today that it had increased its stake in SibEX from 60 to 85 percent.