The 1946 established Palladio with headquarters in Italy, boasts of five production sites, including one in Ireland and one in Serbia with a number of printing, die-cutting and gluing line installations.

UPPL on the other hand is an established name in the Indian packaging market with ultra-modern infrastructure spread across 1.1-lakh sqft factory in Ahmedabad.

UPPL's chairman Manoj Mehta said that the joint venture would allow both the companies to explore the pharma packaging sector in India "without disturbing their own operations in packaging."

Mehta added: "At present we have very limited presence in the pharma sector. With this partnership we plan to move significantly into this sector with end-to-end solutions to reinforce our brand and increase our global competitiveness."

According to Palladio, its state-of-the-art technology will offer advanced security techqniues against the problems of counterfeit and establish a synergic supply chain that will cater to Indian and world markets, through UPPL.

Vino Patel, business development representative for Palladio, said: "The partnership will give us an advantage for scale economics, timescales and warehouse management, that has positive impact on cost and an edge in competitiveness."