UBM organizers of the CPhI Conference | 13 October, 2015

Gurpreet Sandhu - Reva Pharma

The CPhI report predicts a possible NCE new chemical entity from India over the next few years… how close do you think the market is to achieving this?

The Indian industry is working towards it and immense investment is being made in R&D to reach the goal. The success of Insulin (Biocon) is a step towards the same. We are hopeful in the next five years positive work should be expected from Indian pharma. We hold lot of expectations from players like Dr Reddy, Sun Pharma, Lupin, and Cipla.

The report predicts a shift towards high value formulations being produced in India. Do you think this is where the future lies for the industry?

In recent years, India has vastly increased its capabilities, expanding from API manufacturing to Dosage Form & Delivery. The investment in research & development by Indian pharmaceutical companies have shifted development of plain vanilla formulations to complex dosage forms. There is a complete shift to high value, low volume, complex chemistry with IP advantage.

Concerns around intellectual property rights and patent protection appear to be easing internationally, please comment.

U.S. President Obama and Indian Prime Minister Modi have carved out a highly ambitious agenda for the future in which intellectual property rights, a longstanding sticking-point between the two nations gets priority. The joint statement looks forward “to enhancing engagement on Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) in 2015 under the High Level Working Group on Intellectual Property, to the mutual benefit of both the countries” and reiterates both countries’ interest “in sharing information and best practices on IPR issues,” and reaffirms their “commitment to stakeholders’ consultations on policy matters concerning intellectual property protection.”

Based on exports growth, the CPhI report forecasts we will see many of India’s SMEs emerging and growing into MNCs over the few years.

Trends and business strategies adopted by Small and Medium sized enterprises (SMEs) which were traditionally domestic players are now emerging as potential large players. This scope has increased post investment in research, quality manpower, focused market selection and drug therapy vision. We hold a clear example like; Le Pharma (Hyderabad) having more than 50 percent of its revenue from the international markets and many more like this.

What most excites you at Reva pharma about the potential in Indian pharma?

India having a pool of personnel with high managerial and technical competence to provide safe and quality controlled pharmaceuticals to the globe. Additionally, we have the highest number of regulatory approved facilities in the world; domestic players are growing their base through mergers & acquisitions module—large build-up happening in U.S. & emerging markets; and investment in R&D increases. Our home market growth excites the most—expansion expected to $50 billion by 2022.