Our strategy during the pandemic was to focus on continuing the supply chain, says Anil Kumar Jain, CEO - API Business, Sun Pharma at a panel discussion on ‘Advanced Manufacturing, Quality Focus, and Resilient Supply Chain’ on the sidelines of BioAsia 2022 virtual event organized by the Telangana government.

"We improved the coordination of the department in challenging times of whether one would turn up at work. We built communication cells and improved attendance percentage. We had external challenges. We liaised with the government departments. We worked with indigenous sources. We improved the forecasting system related to forecasts versus inventory. All these helped in the performance which was beyond budget during the pandemic,” says Anil Kumar Jain, CEO - API Business, Sun Pharma.

Covid-19 has given an opportunity to a lot of pharma industries to digitize, learn and excel, added Jain.

"Any effect on the Indian pharma industry has a global impact. There were challenges on the upstream side that include procurement and manufacturing. We had challenges with the packing material that doesn't fall under the definition of essentials. The manufacturing challenges included isolating a workforce of 2,000 in numbers. But with the help of governmental agencies, we have sailed through it,” opines Sandeep Narang, Associate Vice President - Head Global Supply Chain Planning, Alkem Laboratories.

"At downstream level, the challenges included the logistics such as getting drivers on time. There was confusion about the policies while crossing state borders. What we did at Alkem was collaboration among team members, the stakeholders, and would hold discussions to close the process in two weeks that would otherwise have taken two months. We adopted technology at R&D centres to get quick decisions," adds Sandeep Narang.

"Despite all the challenges we are coming out feeling stronger. At USP we saw two challenges, one for the industry and the second for ourselves. We had a hypothesis that for generic industries we had more barriers than opportunities. We did a series of surveys and got data. And it is true that there are more barriers to adoption from the skillset available, barriers to regulatory acceptance, longer timelines for approvals," opines Ronald T. Piervincenzi, CEO, United States Pharmacopeia.

"The second challenge was that we didn't have the expertise to write the standards to reduce those barriers. With the Catch 22 situation, we broke the cycle by a 3-way partnership with a full corporation, a not-for-profit agency in Virginia, and USP. We started working on advanced manufacturing of APIs and finished by hiring five scientists onboard and still filling in more, and we will be working live and using those learnings directly to write public standards that can be used by all of the industry without regulatory risks or additional burdens. We would be using other tools even before the standards, publications and other round tables to share the information or data, share feedback, so we don’t have to wait for it to be complete," adds Piervincenzi.

Rather than de-globalization, it is re-globalisation and we will see a repositioning of the supply chain, says Sanjay Chaturvedi, CEO, IOL Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals.

Chaturvedi said, "We are making significant efforts in terms of our digital outreach. It helps in building brand organization, but also in better reaching your customers and above all works as a great recruitment tool as well. In terms of finding an alternative to reduce overdependence on China. It’s not really about independence. One has to take a long-term more mature way of saying it’s more about interdependence. The whole supply chain is interlinked, so one has to do it in the backdrop of quality, expertise, experience, capability and above all cost. That’s the balance we want to walk. We have to find smaller intermediate players in India as we cannot wish away China. The PLI scheme is a very good idea and a lot of players have come forward."

Diversification will become an important area, believes Saikat Ghosh, Associate Partner, EY who bets big on this strategy to ensure security of supply chain. 

Saikat Ghosh said, "The PLI scheme is a very structured concerted effort by the Indian government to actually solve the problems at its root. PLI1 focuses on value of the bulk whereas PLI2 focuses on the value chain. But overall approximately US $3 billion of outlay that has been proposed will go a long way for the Indian API manufacturing companies as well as the formulators to achieve some of its strategic objectives. Higher diversification is what the industry must strive for rather than making it a one-dimensional effort of reducing dependency on China. Some institutional intermediaries have liked the diversification theme. Quite many global formulators have gained a competitive edge through diversification. Hence, diversification is going to be key to selection of formulary or suppliers and will ensure the security of the supply chain in the face of a crisis."