Chennai: Orchid Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals plans to launch three drugs in the US market this year. The three drugs are: Cefepime and Cefdinir in the Cephalosporin range and Tazobactum-Piperaillin in the penicillin range.

The company expects these drugs to fuel its growth in 2007-08. The addressable market for these three products in US is $1.5 billion (Rs6,000 crore).

In 2008-09, Orchid plans to launch antibiotic drugs in the ''carbopenam range. In addition, the company would begin marketing all the cephalosporin-based antibiotics in the European markets. The company has about a dozen products in that range.

Further, it would launch a cephalosporin-based veterinary injectible in the US.

The year 2009-10 would see "another step function jump" because of launch of another clutch of carbopenams and a range of non-antibiotic products in the US. This is significant because under a ''first to file'' law, Orchid would get a six-month market exclusivity for several of these products.

In 2009-10, Orchid would enter the lucrative Japanese market.

This is even though drug prices in Japan are fixed by the government they are comfortably high. The company expects a 25 per cent jump in its revenues for the current year. Last year, the company''s turnover stood at Rs934 crore.