TeamLease, the country’s temporary staffing major, has observed a noticeable increase in the number of job hunters in the pharmaceutical research & development space. This is because of the recent closures of research centres of Piramal Life Sciences and AstraZeneca in India leaving scientists to search for new openings in the sector.

“Pharmaceutical R&D industry is going through a turmoil. Regulatory procedures are complex in clinical trials. There are constraints like paucity of financing opportunities for R&D and the delay in securing intellectual property rights (IPR). With increase in the investments and discovery failures at later stages has not justified expansions. The number of new drugs reduced drastically over a decade, Hussain Tinwala, general manager, TeamLease Services, told Pharmabiz.

The early stages of drug development are limited to a handful of local companies or few contract research organisations (CROs). Drug discovery is about productivity, companies need to focus on measures to boost productivity and efficiency at the same time work around on reducing time-to-market, he added.

R&D talent is limited for niche areas and with increasing demand, retaining key talent is also an important factor for companies engaged in R&D. Loss of key resources leads to loss of knowledge base and this further adds to the bottleneck which impacts the lead-time and people productivity. TeamLease had received few applications of candidates open to explore other industries apart from pharma, he said.

According to TeamLease, the fast moving consumer goods (FMCG), food and chemical industries attracts few skills which are found and similar to pharma R&D industry. While AstraZeneca and Piramal have close down their R&D units, Cipla has made a recent announcement to invest Rs.600 crore in R&D. From talent perspective, opportunities are immense. Hiring for key talent within pharma happens mainly through network or internal recommendations. Key individuals armed with niche skills find considerable opportunities through their own network.

Now the Union government needs to expand investments in healthcare and medical insurance. This will widen the opportunities for generics for pharma companies who could then re-invest in the drug discovery for the future. India is already attractive for global investments because of the access to scientific research acumen. Therefore government should look to attract players to set up R&D centres here or scout for strategic joint ventures with Indian pharma and biotech companies. Further the government needs to expedite and resolve challenges pertaining to intellectual property. All these would only create more job in R&D, pointed out Tinwala.

Pharma companies have to explore possibility of collaborating with different institutes/universities to engage students in generating fresh ideas towards discovery. This investment will not only develop fresh graduates with an innovative approach but also involves as cost effective measure, noted Tinwala.