Indegene, a life sciences solution provider working towards garnering its next phase of growth via an acquisition route is now eyeing the US and European Union to identify potential companies to increase its market reach.
 
Due to the changing pharma landscape and rise of new digital media, the main revenue drivers are new commercial models like the virtual sales organization, patient value services, physician engagement models, social media analytics and multichannel marketing analytics. Given the need for increased compliance to the regulatory requirements, our extended medical enterprise domain is also growing fast.
 
The company is looking to drive growth both organically and inorganically. “We are for acquisition opportunities in the US and Europe and will invest significantly in business development efforts. The objective is to build capabilities in-house by continuously investing in intellectual property, building competencies and up-skilling our employees. We will also invest in building technology and operations infrastructure and systems and processes for the future,” Manish Gupta, CEO, Indegene Lifesystems Limited told Pharmabiz.
 
Currently, the US market is its largest revenue contributor, followed closely by the EU and emerging markets. “There is significant growth seen in the emerging markets where we are specifically bullish on our China operations which commenced two years ago”, he added.
 
During this global financial crisis, all major industries are facing a tough time with respect to the current global financial crisis. Although traditionally life sciences has been immune to recession, recent disruptive macro changes have caused severe economic downturn, especially in developed markets. “The companies in this space will have to continue building medical and marketing capabilities coupled with a strong technology and analytics.  Therefore establishing the right organizational process and methodologies will play a crucial role in overcoming these unprecedented  challenges,” he said.
 
Currently, Indegene has over 900 employees worldwide, of which over  400 are from clinical, research, medical and scientific backgrounds. Around  100 professionals have  extensive pharmaceutical industry. Access to  desired skill set and expertise and  managing  attrition have been issues.  The company was ranked as ‘the best places to work’ in 2011 and in 2012. It  initiated new programmes such as i-campus and have tie-ups with over 40 medical, clinical research, pharmacy and creative institutes.
 
The company’s proprietary clinical trials analytics and benchmarking platform  TrialPedia now  has released its version 2 .   Although its version 1 has  many unique features, customers found limitations and were looking for a value addition and it decided to introduce TrialPedia 2.0. The initial response to TrialPedia has been encouraging. Further the  advanced version covers  over 200 disease indications and comes with advanced search, data mining and reporting capabilities. It is also  packaged with trial timeline maps,  Investigatorpedia, and decision support service, which are bundled together and offered as one product.
 
The current pharma market indicates that  companies are shifting focus to  emerging markets to drive growth. Physicians have become less accessible and are demanding more scientific interactions with the companies. This is where adoption of new technology and digital media is on the rise. Alternate channels of physician engagement, multichannel marketing and social media marketing are becoming the key to engage stakeholders. More virtualization and digitisation of the pharmaceutical industry will continue to take place in the coming years, said Gupta.