Quality the key to transform Indian Pharma

"Chava’s Laurus Labs, which has moved from being a single product company to a fully integrated API and formulations company, to a biotechnology company, has now set its eyes on novel emerging cell and gene therapies.

Quality consciousness in pharma companies is essential to bring about a transformation in the industry and correct the poor reputation of Indian pharma companies globally. That, combined with a strong will from the government to change things around, will make a difference, says Satyanarayana Chava, Founder and CEO of Laurus Labs.

The Indian pharma industry has been rocked by allegations of poor quality manufacturing, inadequate monitoring and supply of contaminated medicines, leading to deaths in other countries.

Chava, whose firm supplies most of its drugs in highly regulated markets such as the US and Europe, says in an exclusive interview to Moneycontrol, that the country's image takes a beating with reports of casualties due to contaminated drugs made by a few smaller pharma companies in India.

"In a democracy, nothing will change unless there is a political will for it. Only one company or an individual cannot change (it), there should be a political will to change the face of the Indian pharma industry,” he says.

Stressing on equal access to quality drugs for all, Chava says the focus for both government and drug manufacturers should be on producing one quality standard for every market.

“In all our facilities, we produce drugs which can go anywhere in the world. It’s not like this drug is meant for one country, and that drug is meant for some other region like Japan, US or Europe. We differentiate regions by price, not by quality. It’s not like we sell better quality drugs in the US and plan lower standards’ supply for other countries. That's the legacy we want to maintain,” he adds.

Infrastructure boost can reduce API dependence

Chava, whose firm is one of the leading suppliers of anti-retroviral APIs (active pharmaceutical ingredients) for Hepatitis C and Oncology drugs, and intermediates, said the union government needs to invest in industrial parks for reducing the dependence on other countries.

“If you go to China, there are thousands of acres of industrial parks with well-laid roads and infrastructure,” he says, urging the government to put up fully integrated industrial parks.

“The companies will come if we have fully integrated industrial parks. We can become a manufacturing hub for pharmaceuticals,” he adds.

Commenting on the role of the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme, Chava says, "the PLI is a good initiative, but one has to see how many manufacturing plants for APIs have been set-up after PLIs announcement; big pharma companies are setting up massive plants of six to seven APIs. Incentives will support the industry to some extent, but what is needed is large industrial parks”.

Here again, he differentiates between APIs for generics and innovators.

“The value lies in the supply of API to innovators because APIs to generic companies are highly price-driven,” he says.

Investing in novel therapies for future

Chava’s Laurus Labs, which has moved from being a single product company to a fully integrated API and formulations company, to a biotechnology company, has now set its eyes on novel emerging cell and gene therapies. The core idea behind investment in cell and gene therapy was to get the company into new frontiers of healthcare, he says.

The company recently signed a memorandum of agreement (MoA) with IIT-Kanpur (IIT-K) to in-license a few gene therapy assets.

“We decided to put up to 10 percent of our profits into disruption technologies. We invested around 100 crore. If we succeed, we're creating an example. This is not a generic method; IIT Bombay (ImmunoACT) has developed a new plan for CART therapy, this is cutting edge research,” he adds. The gene therapy assets are 100 percent owned by Laurus Labs, whereas in the cell therapy agreement with ImmunoACT, the company has a close to 40 percent share.