Despite the increasing competition from the neighbouring northern and southern states like Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Delhi, Maharashtra with its vast latent pool and traditional investments continues to be the sought after locale for pharma and its allied players from across the globe to kick-start their operations in India and reach at the top slot in the course of time.
While the states like Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Delhi are garnering new investments in the area of pharma and its allied segments with their carefully drafted industrial friendly and proactive policies, Maharashtra with its better infrastructure, conducive industrial atmosphere, enhanced support from small scale companies and skills in chemistry has so far remained unaffected by any of the threats posed by them.
However, it's high time that the government of Maharashtra initiated more proactive steps to grow its pharma industry and preserve its identity as the pharma hub of India. Otherwise, these emerging forces are likely to push the pharmaceutical industry in Maharashtra down and take supremacy in the near future.
"Historically Maharashtra has been the pharma hub of India but now has competition from Andhra Pradesh, Delhi and Gujarat. Gujarat particularly has been very proactive in reaching out to industry and encouraging new investments to the state by truly laying out the red carpet. The recent decision of the Tatas to take their small car project to Gujarat is a good example. Gujarat has also been in the forefront of developing its infrastructure," said, Ranjit Shahani, vice chairman and managing director, Novartis India Limited.
"The fact remains that the pharma talent pool and the traditional investments still remain in Maharashtra. This should not make the state complacent and thus losing its head start. Maharashtra should in fact build its healthy industry base by being more robust in its encouragement to industry," he stressed.
In fact, there are a myriad of factors that give pharmaceutical industry in Maharashtra an edge over pharma industry in its neighbouring states. According to Glenn Saldanha, chief executive officer and managing director, Glenmark Pharmaceuticals, factors such as good infrastructure, strong base of raw material suppliers and very good talent are what make Maharashtra the pharma hub of India. "More over, active pharmaceutical suppliers are centred on this region," he said, while emphasising the uniqueness of Maharashtra, which makes it attractive to pharma players across the world.
"Maharashtra besides being an investment friendly destination has very good talent in the area of chemistry. These are the primary reasons why we set up our research and development centre in Maharashtra. Today Glenmark is the leader in drug discovery in India and we have been supported by the Maharashtra state which has provided us good infrastructure and investment friendly policies," stressed Glenn Saldanha.
When it comes to investments, Big Pharma like Novartis India has made significant investments in this traditional forte of pharma industry. "Novartis and its predecessor companies Sandoz and Hindustan Ciba-Geigy have been operating successfully in Maharashtra in both manufacturing and marketing for more than 60 years. Novartis has in fact invested in a global over-the-counter (OTC) research and development (R&D) centre and a global generics development centre in Thane, Maharashtra," said Ranjit Shahani of Novartis India.
When asked what's still lacking to Maharashtra's status as the pharma hub of India, a Sun Pharma spokesperson in an e-mail reply conveyed that things seem fine.
Mumbai-centric
Maharashtra, which presently accounts for about 40 per cent of the country's pharma market, houses six of the top ten pharma companies in the country. Interestingly, all these top players - Glenmark Pharmaceuticals, Sun Pharmaceuticals, Wockhardt, Lupin, Cipla, and Piramal Healthcare - are based in Mumbai, the financial capital of India, which is also the capital of Maharashtra.
Even at this point of recession, Mumbai continues to be the commercial centre of India generating about five per cent of the country's gross domestic product and accounting for approximately 25 per cent of industrial output. Also, Mumbai is the second populous city in the world with around thirteen (13) million inhabitants. This makes Mumbai, especially Maharashtra attractive for domestic and foreign healthcare providers and drug manufacturers to roll out their operations.
"Having the corporate headquarters in Mumbai helps in convenient access to markets, customers and vendors spread across the country as well as internationally," noted a Sun Pharma spokesperson.
The company spokesperson also revealed that the current economic slowdown hasn't affected its overall performance. "We have yet to witness any slowdown in the domestic market or exports, both continue to perform well for us."
Also, the Glenmark head made it clear that the recent recession has in no way affected the pharma industry in India, especially Maharashtra. "Pharma is relatively insulated from recession. In times of recession, the pharma sector usually stands out among other sectors. Hence we do not expect any fallout for the pharma sector due to the slowdown in the overall global economy. In fact, I feel that low cost generics that are supplied to the developed world by Indian manufacturers should get a boost in times of recession. India has already proved to the world that it can produce very good quality generics medicines," said Glenn Saldanha of Glenmark.
If the government takes such a measure to boost the supply of low cost generics to the developed countries in this time of recession, no doubt, it would in turn boost the performance of most of the top pharma players in Maharashtra, who have a proven record in developing and supplying low cost generics.
Besides all these, of late Mumbai is also emerging as a preferred destination for pharma multinationals to set up their captive centres in India.