Cadila Pharma is poised to take the next leap: CEO Rajiv Modi

From being a mid-sized company back in the 1990s, Ahmedabad-based Cadila Pharmaceuticals has come a long way to become one of the largest privately-held drug companies in India.In an interview with CNBC-TV18's Priya Sheth, Chairman and MD Rajiv Modi discussed his outlook on the company's business and the industry in general.Below is the verbatim transcript of Rajiv Modi’s interview with Priya Sheth on CNBC-TV18. Q: What are you views on the growth in pharmaceutical industry? A: Indian pharmaceutical industry has a wonderful lineage history where it has in spite of the challenges become a global force in making the highest quality affordable medicines. Not only for the huge population of our country, the 1.3 billion plus people of our country but also almost the entire world. Today when you would go out of India most of the places would have some brand of India either it is a brand of a multinational company which is manufacturing base, some relationship in India or an Indian global multinational company which sells his products or they would have partnered with a local company. So, throughout the 50 plus years of history of the evolution of the Indian pharmaceutical industry, the industry through works of people like my father and others has become a very strong deeply entrenched industry which has deep roots, a very strong base which can sustain not only the current phase of generic medicines but also I think is staged for developing newer medicines. I am not very surprised of that in the next 5-10 years India would also emerge as a hub for making new innovative products. We are very well entrenched for the future. As we are growing up we are understanding the challenges of various ecosystems of the world, how they expect products to be packaged and to be delivered and so on. Industry is maturing and growing up even to those expectations, so I think it is very positive. Q: In terms of growth can you run us through what is the kind of strategy you are working with at Cadila Pharmaceuticals for FY17? A: Cadila is at a wonderful stage I would say. When I started working very closely with the company and then as we re-organised in 1995 along with my father and a very small humble management team, we built it from Rs 100 crore to now Rs 2,000 crore. So, the company is one of the largest privately held companies in India. The company is now staged to take the next leap. We have more than 200 brands, three or four of the brands are in the top five but all these other brands have a huge potential of increased market share. Even if we were to jump a few ranks we would be in the top 5 or 10 companies of India. So, it is a wonderful background for the domestic market.