Pharma tycoons climb as stocks zoom

 

Over a dozen people from pharmaceuticals and healthcare industry made it to the Forbes list of India's 100 Richest People.

Apart from the second richest Indian Dilip Shanghvi of Sun Pharmaceutical Industries (net worth $18 billion), the list includes vaccine king Cyrus Poonawala (net worth $7.9 billion) who owns Serum Institute of India, who made it to the top ten, Desh Bandhu Gupta (net worth of $5.9 billion) of Lupin, Pankaj Patel ($4.1 billion) of Cadila Healthcare, Yusuf Hamied ($3 billion) of Cipla, PV Ramprasad Reddy ($2.8 billion) of Aurobindo Pharma, Reddy Family ($2.6 billion) of Dr Reddy's Laboratories, Samprada Singh ($2 billion of Alkem Laboratories) and Glenn Saldanha ($2 billion) of Glenmark.

 

Forbes in its list said Dilip Shanghvi's wealth flatlined as Sun Pharma reported a 46% drop in net profit due to merger costs linked to acquisition of rival Ranbaxy Industries.

The list of 100 people also saw Leena Tiwari of USV Pharma, Mannalal Agarwal of Ajanta Pharma and Chirayu Amin of Alembic Pharmaceuticals making an entry with net worths of $1.9 billion, $1.4 billion and $1.2 billion, respectively.

Both Mannalal Agrawal and Chirayu Amin debut on list after shares of Ajanta Pharma more than doubled in the past year, while that of Alembic Pharmaceuticals rose 66% in the past 12 months on the back of higher revenues and profits.

The list includes Rajendra Agarwal of Macleod's Pharmaceuticals, Habil Khorakiwala of Wockhardt, Ajay Piramal of Piramal Enterprises, Malvinder and Shivinder Singh of Fortis, all with net worths of $1.8 billion. It also lists B R Shetty ($1.7 billion) of UAE-based NMC Healthcare, Dilip and Anand Surana ($1.6 billion) of Micro Labs, Ramesh Juneja ($1.5 billion) of Mankind Pharma and Azad Moopen ($1.5 billion) of Aster DM Healthcare.

USTR’s praise of Modi’s remarks worries pharma companies

The United States' appreciation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's remarks on intellectual property rights (IPR) has stirred concerns among the public health groups as well as the domestic drug manufacturing industry.

While keeping India under its 'priority watch list' in the annual report on IPR laws and patent regimes of partner countries and noting that several of its policies continue to be of grave concern, the US Trade Representative (USTR) has lauded Modi's recent remarks to align India's patent laws with "international standards".

Public health groups, advocating patient rights for access to cheaper medicines, are now concerned that this should not lead to softening of India's stand by making changes in its patent law, which has been a matter of contention between the US and Indian government for its stringent provisions.

 

MSF, working with patients in several developing nations, said it is extremely concerned that any suggested modifications in India's IP laws will have an impact on availability of affordable medicines.

Another such organization, Delhi Network of Positive People, working mainly with HIV infected people around the world, has written to Modi, commerce minister Nirmala Sitharaman and health minister J P Nadda to safeguard interests of patients and not fall into the US trap to introduce IP provisions by making backdoor amendments to other laws such as the Drugs and Cosmetics Act.

The USTR report dubs China and India as sources of most of the counterfeit pharmaceuticals shipped to the US. "While it is impossible to determine an exact figure, studies have suggested that up to 20% of drugs sold in the Indian market are counterfeit and could represent a serious threat to patient health and safety," the report said.

While refraining from imposing an out-of-cycle review (OCR) of India's IPR laws, the report lauded the efforts of the National Democratic Alliance government towards "increased bilateral engagement" between both countries in matters pertaining to IPR.

The report states that the US expects India to keep the momentum going, indicating expediting the rolling out of the national IPR policy, leading to "substantial and measurable improvements" in the country's IPR and patent laws.

However, executives of domestic pharmaceutical companies, manufacturing low cost generic medicines, say India must not fall under such pressure and instead should be cautious while making promises.

"We must not make concessions in our patent law. Also, policy makers need to be more cautious while dealing with bilateral issues and making strategies," said Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance secretary general DG Shah.

In September last year, the government here had announced it would come out with an IPR policy by early this year. For this, it has set up a taskforce under the aegis of the department of industrial policy and promotion. The final draft of the policy is now pending with the ministry of commerce.

 

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/USTRs-praise-of-Modis-remarks-worries-pharma-companies/articleshow/47126816.cms 

Pharma Industry and Commercial Data Analytics

Ever since the fall of the financial world in 2008, the global healthcare community has been in a unprecedented tizzy concerning its financial expenditure with very little direction towards salvation. The impact of this turn of events had been felt in the pharmaceutical industry, where the price for innovation and scientific progress was questioned. Leading pharmaceutical companies bore the brunt of the resulting promotion of non innovative/generic drugs and increasing pricing pressure for innovative drugs.

The pharmaceutical industry has responded to this crisis by being more cautious in their expenditure – R&D, promotions, sales, etc. Effective performance has been demanded from the salesmen and marketers, and this increased scrutiny has prompted an uptake in the usage of Analytics to make decisions at all the levels of business.

Analytics is the use of Data, collected with intent, from processes which define a business. In the pharmaceutical industry, the sales data (brand, geographical region, indication, line of therapy, pack size), sale rep visits, promotional expenditure, discounts offered, clinical data are some of the facets of business where Analytics capabilities have been developed and used so far. The onset of field of health informatics has enabled to analyze the demand side of the business, both for the payers and the Pharmaceutical companies. Outcomes research and real world evidence have gained significance for reimbursement decisions and formulary listings.

Although Analytics existed since the onset of the industrial revolution, the current capabilities including the big data collection and analysis has been created by the advent of information technology. Although the promise of Analytics has been realized in various other industries such as finance, retail and industrial production, the Pharma industry (except the big few) has been plagued by the limitations in know-how and essential infrastructure. Connected data processes (between manufacturer, wholesaler, retailer, healthcare providers) are an important requirement for collection of the data which is lacking ubiquitously in the industry.

The shortcomings in the Analytics capabilities of the Pharma industry has given rise to a host of third party providers who offer boutique solutions tailored to meet the needs. However these cannot replace the company’s own capabilities due to the lack of the overall corporate context in the outsourced set up.

Secondary research and analysis often have a time lag of 6-8 months which relegates its importance to the marketers. Marketing managers prefer to have fresh and dynamic inputs from the markets rather than the static insights from secondary research. Some of the key areas of applications of Analytics specific to the Sales, Marketing and Strategic planning in the Pharma industry are listed below with brief explanations

-          Optimized marketing expenditure across customers and channels: Analytics offers marketing mix optimization using predictive analyses to suggest future best course of action. For example a push of a button can help run analyses that optimally allocate the total brand marketing budget across multiple internal departments within healthcare consumers such as health care provider (HCP) sales/marketing, consumer/patient marketing and managed markets contracting (rebates/allowances). This method includes adding the interdependencies of the variables and can provide ‘what if’ scenarios which offer a multidimensional view of the market.

-          Optimized targeting of prescribers and the related investment decisions:  The traditional approach of identifying the potential prescribers which is based on the historical data is passé. The historic data can suggest only based on historical prescription habit and cannot predict potential future leaders in prescription. Predictive Analytics can identify attributes of high profile prescribers and help spot potential leaders-with similar attributes-potential future prescribing leaders are highest productive target for sales force effectiveness. Identification of prescription patterns can also help segment the market which will help to streamline investments in the right directions.

-          Optimize the marketing channels, and identification of key opinion leaders:  Information about the preferences of the physicians about their mode of contact (mail, personal, e-mail) and frequency of rep visit preferred also helps to increase productivity of sales rep visits. Targeting the high value prescribers can be further improved if key opinion leaders/top influencers in the field are identified. Social media Analytics offers solutions which involve text mining tools scouring through   the internet to identify individuals and groups who can have a direct/indirect impact to prescription through academic clinical research work; journal publications and conference speaking. Following the trending individuals and their works (studied through interdependent variables such as recent publications in top journals, key recent conference presentations, and key incumbent board positions) can help companies focus on the individuals with highest impact who are the most productive targets.

-          Study the sentiments of the patient/provider feedback and sentiments: Social media Analytics uses text Analytics and descriptive statistics to identify key sentiments running amongst the various market segments. The interactive online initiatives through social networking sites organized by patient support groups, healthcare providers and patients offer an excellent opportunity for the marketers to understand the product performance.