S V Veeramani is Vice President (South Zone), Indian Drug Manufacturers' Association (IDMA) and also the Chairman of National SSI Committee of IDMA. He is also Chairman and Managing Director of the Chennai based pharma major Fourtts India (Laboratories) Pvt. Ltd.

Veeramani has been the President of the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers' Association (PMA) of Tamil Nadu and Chairman of the IDMA State Board for two terms. He is recipient of several awards like the MMA award 2002, Managerial Excellence award from the Government of Tamil Nadu, 2002 and the IDMA Quality Excellence Award for year 2002 and 2003, EPP Quality Award 2003 etc. P B Jayakumar of Pharmabiz.com spoke to him recently. Excerpts

Since there are other organizations to represent the SSI sector, what were the reasons for IDMA to form a National SSI committee?

Though IDMA had been doing yeomen services to the SSI sector, those were not projected deservingly. Further, the deadline on Schedule M and the changing environment demands more attention to be paid to the SSI sector. The National SSI Committee of IDMA was formed during January 2004 considering the fact that about 400 of the 550 members of IDMA belong to small and medium scale drug houses, and it is important to pay more attention to the problems of the SSI sector at this crucial time. Though IDMA has an SSI sub-committee, it was felt that a national sub-committee was necessary to pay more attention to the problems of SSI units.

We have been supporting and helping the SSI units in the country with a progressive outlook and willingness to adapt and learn to grow to newer heights. It is a matter of fact that many of the leading pharma companies in India were once small SSI units. Myself is an example, who started my career as a medical representative who bagged the best sales person award for three consecutive years, and then started a small pharma firm. Me and three other friends started Fourtts in 1977 with some small savings and a bit of bank and PF loans. So IDMA is there to help the progressive units with a vision to incorporate the latest technologies and ready to adapt to the market conditions with stress on quality. As we have been doing earlier, we will definitely work along with the other organizations representing the SSI sector for the betterment and growth of the SSI units in the country.

You said IDMA have been doing yeomen services to the SSI sector. Kindly elaborate…

The National SSI Committee of IDMA has plans to launch a series of programmes for the benefit of SSI units in the country. We are organizing a series of technical seminars with the theme "Schedule M Upgradation For Progressive SSI units" at Chennai, Delhi, Calcutta and Ahmedabad. The Mumbai event was held last week with a participation of over 200 units. The seminar in Chennai will be held on 19th of June, followed by Ahmedabad in July and Kolkata and Delhi in August. These seminars are based on a survey conducted by IDMA among 400 units.

We had sent a questionnaire to all the members to elaborate on their requirements, apprehensions and other feedback related to Schedule M and the impediments in implementing the modernization process. The survey led us to identify five areas - documentation and validation, water systems, air handling, plant lay out, finance and marketing opportunities as their main concerns. The Schedule M seminars are based on this theme.

Followed by this, IDMA will organize a series of seminars at various places to help the SSIs to bring in professionalism and to improve their marketing network in tune to the challenges of future markets. These seminars will be during October to November period, as our priority is to help the units conform to the Schedule M norms at the earliest. The seminars on marketing will help the units to open a large window of opportunities to them. We have already started discussions with a few professional agencies and experts to chart out the details for these seminars.

Further, IDMA will constitute a panel of consultants for technical and finance aspects related to the SSI sector, at places like Chennai, Mumbai, Delhi and Ahmedabad. These experts will help the units in various aspects related to their production processes and managing the financial aspect, which is the key for the growth of any business.

What are your future plans to help the SSI units?

We are in the process of adopting a few proactive strategies to help our members compete in the emerging new scenario. For example, a proposal is pending for approval from the IDMA to allocate each of the SSI members of the association a separate page in the IDMA website detailing the production capacity and core competencies, including the spare capacity available.

Since the IDMA website has popularity among pharma firms even from outside the country, the members could be able to grab excellent outsourcing contracts in the new business environment. This proposal has to get approval from the IDMA. Another idea, which I have in mind, is to suggest a common guideline or a few common standards for the various state Governments to follow in the tender process for procuring medicines.

At present various state Governments follow various norms, especially WHO-GMP norms mandatory to participate in the tender process, and some other states insist on minimum turnover criteria. The Karnataka state introduced this criterion recently and IDMA strongly protested against that. Instead of these guidelines, price and quality should be the benchmark for the tender process. Once the units are allowed to modernize, why should the Governments insist on a WHO-GMP facility? Instead, you can have the criteria to be an Indian standard like a 'Schedule M complainant factory'.

How do you see the future for SSI units?

SSI units have excellent opportunities in the changing world. They should focus on their core competencies and should try to leverage from that. Instead of looking at all the segments, it is better to focus and specialize in some areas. Instead of looking at marketing a product all around, focus on the local region, where you have advantages than your competitors, whether the multinationals or other big companies.

Is it that IDMA has started an aggressive campaign to enroll more members from the SSI sector?

We need not be aggressive to enroll all the 5500 odd units in India. Units with a progressive vision will be willing to join hands with IDMA in their growth. Since it was found that some of the SSI units were complaining of a high admission fee, we decided to offer admission fee waiver of Rs 1,000.