Yasham Group Companies, a specialty raw material marketing company is a supplier of  specialty products to pharma research, nutritional and personal care, cosmoceuticals  industry. The company represents several international players like Seppic, Stearinerie Dubois, Iwase Cosfa, Sophim,  Leasun, Schulke to name a few. The company is also participating at the CPHI India 2011. In an interaction over email, Vivek D. Samant, managing director, Yasham Group Companies gives an overview of the industry and its  future plans to Nandita Vijay. Excerpts:

What according to you are the visible trends in the Indian market for APIs and specialty chemicals?
As most of the products are going off patent by 2014, the development activities in the country has  reduced considerably and  companies are now focusing on consolidating their position in the existing products and / or having backward integration to strengthen their position by efficiently developing process or working on economics of sales.  In all products – API, specialty chemicals and others, it is a recognized fact that backward integration is the only way which will help companies to sustain competition and be economical.  

With the global economy in a subdued phase, what do you think are the serious challenges for companies to look at India for growth prospects?
The Indian industry has been always facing a great challenge. In the last two decades there has been a dramatic growth for some companies and  a reasonable growth for many. To maintain the pace and their position is really a challenge for most of the Indian companies. Today only a very few have innovative products in pipeline which could be blockbuster and hence it is difficult for all to really have  big organic / inorganic growth.  There is a large domestic market which could be looked at, but most of the companies focus on the global market which could be difficult as opportunities are getting limited.  All the companies have to look into their product profile and position their strong molecule for the domestic market as well.

How would you describe the business environment in India?
Business environment in India has always been dynamic.  While in some parts of the year we really see a dramatic growth of activities, in some parts of the year there is a real drop.  In the past , pharma business did exhibit seasonal variations but now as  India has become  the key generic supplier in the global market , these seasonal variations are not seen. However ,as we have seen, the global market does influence the business environment in India.. Though  the growth may be steady, the pace may be subdued.  Further the role of the private sector and foreign investment in the Indian economy is increasing. Industrial policy emphasizes boosting economic growth through encouraging the generation of income and wealth. The vast and growing middle-class population provides a large domestic market. Skilled manpower and professional managers are available at reasonable salaries. Capital markets, the banking infrastructure and the financial services sector are well developed. The rupee is now convertible on the current account and exchange rates are market-determined. There has been rapid progress in implementing government commitment to the deregulation process.  This indirectly influences the market environment too.

What according to you is the scope of doing  business in India?
It is a known fact that  China is a leader in supplying intermediates for several API’s while   Indian manufacturers have  strength in developing  formulation through drug delivery technology. We feel there would be great scope for Indian industries if they could start looking at developing economical technologies for intermediates in general, while some of the big industrial groups look at manufacturing basic chemicals and their derivatives to support the intermediate producers.  In the near future Chinese products would surely get expensive and it would be a good opportunity for Indian companies to develop good technologies and make available intermediates and fine chemicals.

Could you brief us on the  the growth of Yasham Biosciences  over the years?
Yasham was basically involved in the indenting activity of pharma intermediates and solvents.  Since 2003 we decided to venture into pharma ingredients namely excipients for solid orals, injectables and other specialty chemicals.   Both, our customers and principals wanted value-addition while servicing them and hence Yasham Bio-Science took the initiative to import, stock and distribute the products giving technical support. Since then there has been a remarkable growth and we are confident that this activity has all the potential to grow and at Yasham we are gearing up to  focus on the activity by identifying new products for the customers to develop New Dug Delivery Systems.

What are your strategies  to grow in India and overseas?
Yasham as a Group has different activities focused on its marketing strengths both for domestic and international markets.   To focus in the overseas market ,we have an independent company namely Yasham Chemphar Pvt. Ltd, which is marketing specialty products for pharma research, nutritional and drug industry.  The strategy adopted for domestic market was to help the small and medium companies and take their products to the global market giving our value-added marketing intelligence.  Selecting a niche product and offering them to the developed markets is one of the key strategies which has worked very well.   In the domestic market, we are servicing the industry by catering to customers giving them products which help in solving their critical problems.

Would you provide us details of the production plant and the research labs of the company and the  investments made in them?
Yasham is basically a marketing company and it has been its strength for long.  We have made exclusive tie-ups with specific plants which assist us in supplying products as per our requirements. We cater to  drug intermediates and specialty fine chemicals both for regular production and for the research of new drug. Though Yasham has not yet invested in research labs or production plants,we would like to look at this in next few years
 
How do you see the growth of Yasham  in the region in 2012 -2013? How do you envisage the  competition in markets such as India?
Growth for Yasham year by year has been decent with an average of 15 – 20 per cent and in some exceptional years it has even been high to the extent of 30 per cent. In the coming years we expect a reasonable growth as development activities in the industry are now limited.  Most of the pharma companies have completed their developments for generic markets and hence identifying and marketing  niche products in the coming years has limited opportunity. A decade back , along with  few others,  Yasham had the key position as supplier while in the recent past competition  has increased as companies which were basically traders ( importers & distributors) have also started indenting and / or taking up a few customers and servicing them.  This has increased competition, however, in areas where we have taken position in the past we would continue to grow and see a bright future.

What are your  future plans for  growth in India?
Though the pharma industry was pretty concentrated in only certain areas across the country, in the recent past there has been new companies coming up at distant areas due to the incentives offered by the  Government.  For future growth Yasham plans to service these customers and hence has plans to have their own office in all the regions with the right manpower to service the customers.  We are looking at strengthening our marketing team and internal back office support to reach out to customers at distant regions .