In 2008, Kemwell set up a new R&D facility in Bangalore in partnership with the world's leading pharmaceutical company, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). This R&D center has been set up to cater to GSK's global oral healthcare development projects.

GSK's sales in oral care amounted to £1,049 million in 2007. Its leading oral care products are toothpastes and mouthwashes under the Aquafresh, Sensodyne, Macleans and Odol brand names. GSK Consumer Healthcare (CH) has an aggressive target to significantly grow the business by 2013. To enable this to happen, the R&D arm of the company has committed to doubling the number of projects running through its pipeline. A series of initiatives have been identified within CH R&D to enable this target to be achieved. Specifically, a Global Resourcing (GR) department has been established to identify and qualify contractors in India to increase the capacity for delivering new products through to the launch phase.

Kemwell has been selected by GR as a preferred partner for the development of Oral Care Products. Kemwell achieved this privileged status through their senior management commitment to diversification / innovation, their ability to deliver a new GMP facility, skilled manpower and their commitment to planning, delivery and quality. GSK and Kemwell share a relationship that spans over 20 years and have collaborated on several pharmaceutical manufacturing projects in the past. They are now extending their relationship to meet the R&D demands of GSK.

The newly established Oral Care Unit (OCU) at Kemwell is a state of the art GMP facility suitable for all requisite development activities prior to technical transfer of product for manufacture into a GSK facility. The facility and staffing have been put in place by Kemwell in little over six months and the Unit is now fully operational.