“We need to glamorize the manufacturing or the shopfloor jobs just like the services sector so that people are enthused to join the manufacturing cadre and not shy away from it. Otherwise, the Aatmanirbhar or the ‘Viksit Bharat’ vision of the country will not fructify in a seamless manner. This is my pushback to the whole manufacturing and supply chain community,” remarks Sreenivas Rao Nandigam, Global Head – Supply Chain, Sun Pharma, during this exclusive interaction…
How do think pharma as an industry is shaping the Indian economy?
Sreenivas Rao
Pharma industry is roughly about $60 billion industry, having equal contribution in domestic markets as well as exports, comprising roughly about $30 billion domestic and $30 billion exports. It’s actually a growing industry because it’s not a discretionary spend unlike consumer goods industry. Just like any other industry, the key thing driving the pharma market is innovation. Over the years, the industry has shifted towards bringing value-added products, which can happen only through innovation. As we move forward, I am confident that pharma as an industry will grow ahead of the GDP in the country at around 12% CAGR for the next decade.
What do you have to say about the job creation scenario?
As we all know that India is known as the ‘Pharmacy of the World’. Just to give you an example, about 40% of the pills that are consumed in the US are being manufactured in India. Just to offer you an interesting anecdote… earlier we used to have BPOs, which later became KPOs and now they are being termed as Global Capability Centers (GCC). I know a few pharma companies who are employing over 30,000-40,000 people at these GCCs. There are varied job profile of people, some are doing regulatory work for the world from India while some are doing legal work for global companies from India. This only reflects the potential of job creation that the pharma industry holds.
How do you think digitalization is impacting the pharma industry?
Digital is the name of the game. There is so much action happening in the pharma world whether it is in terms of innovation of molecules, or any other aspect. Today Google is talking about doing the mathematical modelling of a human being and trying to dose drugs on those mathematical models, which is aimed at reducing a new drug innovation timeline to 3 years including the human test, which used to take about 10-12 years. if successful, such experiments will dramatically reduce the cost required for drug discovery. While we are still lagging behind when it comes to adapting new age technologies, if changing times are any signs to go by, we are moving in the right direction.
What are the trends shaping up in the pharma industry?
If we go three decades back, the pharma industry was driven by acute therapies. Slowly it has shifted to chronic therapies comprising of lifestyle diseases such as blood sugar or blood pressure. My gut feel is that slowly and steadily things will actually shift from curing to prevention. This is one megatrend I foresee in the pharma industry. The next generation needs to actually start moving from consuming pharma products which are curative and shift towards preventive therapies.
What do you think is the impact of ‘Make in India’ for Indian economy?
India’s growth is primarily led by service sector while China’s growth has completely been driven by manufacturing. When it comes to manufacturing in India, there are building blocks in the form of policy initiatives being taken by the government such as PLI schemes, developing SEZs, logistics parks, freight corridors, etc. Having said that, the missing link here is that we need to glamorize the manufacturing or the shopfloor jobs just like the services sector so that people are enthused to join the manufacturing cadre and not shy away from it. Otherwise, the Aatmanirbhar or the ‘Viksit Bharat’ vision of the country will not fructify in a seamless manner. This is my pushback to the whole manufacturing and supply chain community.
How is new age infrastructure facilitating growth?
While we have done a lot of work in infrastructure development, it’s still not enough to meet the burgeoning demand of the country and meet exports targets at the same time. The quality of infrastructure is more important for us than the amount of infrastructure projects being developed. We need to work towards advancing cold chain infrastructure, which is still lagging than other countries and that’s one of the crucial areas if we need to enhance our competitiveness in the global market.
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