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Total Number of Subscribers: 1626 |
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Date: 28th March 2010 |
Compiled by: M Sathya Kumar |
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The company
founded in 1996 by Dr. Ella & Mrs. Suchitra K.
Ella. It has since grown to become one of the largest manufacturers of
Recombinant, Viral, Bacterial, Combination Vaccines and Bio Pharmaceuticals
in Genesis
of Bharat Biotech I was in the I then had the
options of either doing a job or do something of my own. I tried doing a job;
but soon enough found out that the company was setup for reasons that were
against my principle – so I quit the job. My background back then was
yeast molecular biology. When I just started Bharat
Biotech, we had a clear focus that we have to address the problems of this
continent and work on areas neglected by multinational companies. We always
believed our competitors are the infectious diseases, not any company or
country.
Scientist
to an entrepreneur – the difficulties faced? I think
I’m one of the first scientists to become an entrepreneur. When a
scientist becomes an entrepreneur, he suddenly makes three-four enemies.
First enemy is the academicians, who always feel that their innovations and
ideas should be above yours. The second is the Financial Institutions. And if
you are US returned, they think that you have lost a job there. And then
there are the people in regulatory body generally think that scientists
cannot do business after coming back from the States. What
part of the business do you spend most of your time on? I just practice
control where my strength is - biological knowledge. I spend 90 percent of
time R&D and problem solving. Every day I get one idea and I can’t
sleep without exploring those ideas; that’s my weakness. The second
priority is product development. I always ask people not to follow the
multinational companies. If somebody is producing by ‘x’ method,
do not limit your mind by blindly following the ‘x’ method. Being
a new company we could always take high risk & we can always develop
alternatives, better strategies, more efficient, and more innovative
products. As for day to day issues and business operations, I don’t get
into that. I have people for that. What
is the overall business outlook in the biotech space in today’s
condition? Like in every
other space, in today’s condition, the fellow who wants and deserves
funding doesn’t get money while the fellow who doesn’t deserve
gets the money. However, when it comes to Department of Biotechnology, you
should appreciate Dr Bhan. He has tremendously
shifted the focus from academic thinking to also thinking about it as a part
of the industry. Earlier all the academic institutes thought research is
their domain and their focus, and not of industries’ interest. Today I think Dr
Paul has shifted the game. Both eyes are important in this country - private
sector and public sector. That brings now pressure to the industry to bring
up the research level / capability to highest standard. For people like us,
being honest, our competitions are not people from institutes like IIT. They
are not our competitors because for me there are some focused areas which
academies institutes cannot do research upon. They just can’t do it. How
easy or difficult is it to bring out products in an ecosystem that involves
the government, academicians, researchers, etc? It is difficult.
Earlier we had only one drug control department and only two companies, Bharat Biotech and Shanta Biotech,
operating in this space. This single window soon became multi windows and in
the process of the transformation, we created more windows. After drug
controller came in 3-4 committees, that started
controlling bio-technology which was not required. Everybody wants power, and
wants to control and regulate which is not good. Rather than that they should
look at it holistically - what is right for the country and what eco system
is right for the country. That intellectual debate is not happening. We are a
multi product company now. Delays in things are ok since we can take them
back. But my worry is if a new entrepreneur is starting, he is going to
suffer. That is what bothers me. What
is the level of patience that is required in getting the ROI? I would say if
your blood pressure does not up after two years, it would mean that you are
in trouble. Your blood pressure will indicate whether you are going to
succeed or not. If it goes up it means you are getting paranoid and you are
trying to make it happen. That’s patience. You need to have high
patience and you have to have increased blood pressure to achieve things. Is
there a gap between what is being done in the country and what should be
done? The model we
want to follow in biotechnology is a big gap. If we follow the biogeneric model, then I think we will be following the
footsteps of the generic model of pharma. Soon
enough, companies are going to be sick in this country and companies will be
acquired. Today a lot of pharma companies are
facing the problem of being in a space where companies are killing each other
through the predatory prices and other ways. Besides this, in a biogeneric model, we have competition from There’s a
model where many countries believe in exporting to U.S. & European
markets. For them The solution is
actually a question: Can Indian companies make innovative molecules that can
be launched globally? I think we can. If you want to stand out finally, let
us tighten the belt and do something in this regards. Your
biggest success I think the
success was the when we produced Hepatitis B vaccine. The vaccine which was
then sold at Rs. 800 a dose, today is not even for Rs. 20 a dose. It’s
just because of competition & innovation that the price has gone down. And
I think the competition brings innovation also. The second important thing we
did was the Rotavirus Vaccine Programme. We are now bringing the global
attention to the Foundation. It is for the first time that an Indian company
is bringing the vaccine to phase three trials. The
next big thing in the biotech space The biogeneric manufacturers will become contract
manufacturers & contract manufacturers will kill all innovation. No
contract manufacturing has become innovative anywhere in the world. On the
other hand, our new generation entrepreneur will take risks and innovate -
for them sustainability is going to be a big task; and whoever can sustain,
will win the major race. So these two things will happen in parallel in the
future of this biotechnology of this country. One
thing that aspiring entrepreneurs should avoid… You are being
foolish, if you’re looking at this segment for short term revenue.
Never enter into this line of business thinking that you are going to make
money in less than 10 years. Article
was earlier published in one of the reputed business magazine. |
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