Leading experts on pharma supply chain are unanimous that compared to the supply chain disruption and resulting struggle witnessed globally during the pandemic, the Indian pharmaceutical industry was leading by example. They were recently speaking at BioAsia 2021, an annual flagship event of the Telangana Government.

“There were initial apprehensions among the employees but these were addressed through motivation and incentives. As a result, we have come out stronger as a team,” says Gaurav Suchak, Head of Supply Chain, Zydus Cadila as he explains how the various teams rallied behind the company during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Suchak shares an example from Zydus. “We had to ramp up the production of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) by 25 times. The backend integration plus our already good production capacity helped us to turn it around fast. Since it was not just about only making profits, we were quite ready to sell the products at a lower cost. A collaborative approach between regulator and industry provided flexibility to do things in a faster way.”

Suchak bets big on next-generation digital technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and big data analytics to optimize capacity-related decisions and manage the entire gamut of the supply chain. He calls for fine-tuning of the regulatory processes to match the fast-paced market dynamics in the new world realities.

Explaining how Indian companies achieved supply chain resilience globally, Swapn Malpani, Joint President and Global Head Supply, Cipla says, “There was a lot of volatility on the demand side. Since the non-covid patient visits to hospitals were too low during the pandemic, the demand for medicines was on the decline. There was the disruption of supply and lack of availability of raw materials which impacted the manufacturing. The government on its part took time to clarify and local authorities had their own ways of working. Despite the challenges, we managed to convince our people to work and continuity of supply. Pharma sector has been agile and particularly at Cipla, we started ramping up our facility in January 2020 itself and when the pandemic hit us we connected with our marketing team on weekly basis to meet demand. All the pharma companies like Cipla invested heavily to ensure that enough support is ensured to meet the demand.”

Our customers were stocking up and there were regulatory issues as well, says Prasad Deshpande, Global Head Supply Chain, ‎Biocon Ltd. “Just before the pandemic, we did the workforce mapping around Wuhan. We did the logistics and prioritized. There was a combination of agility, planning, and a good dose of luck. We were never interrupted and we ran full time. Our group company, Syngene developed a testing kit on a rapid basis and tested our employees and kept them safe,” mentions Deshpande.

Deshpande who has visited the manufacturing facilities across China and Malaysia points out the actual ease of doing business in the countries including free power, packaged subsidies. Sharing his views from a policy intervention perspective, he adds, “The facilities such as mega parks, power plants, effluent treatment plants are needed in India too. We need an energy-intensive industry, ecosystem, and infrastructure that is very challenging.  While we missed the bus earlier, we can still catch up. There is no dearth of talent and interest but we need infrastructure. While we were successful in the first cycle of generics business, we need to achieve success at the second one.”

As per Sreenivas Rao, Global Head Supply Chain, Sun Pharma, notwithstanding the inefficiencies during the pandemic, it was important for the pharma companies to save lives. He explains, “We took few extraordinary steps. The first thing we did was to stop panic buying raw materials and getting our resources ready. Then we got the working capital ready besides the measures to ensure the safety of our own people. Next was the factory and supply chain. We ensured that we have enough means of transport including containers and trucks. Since towards end of June 2020 there were no flights, we had to book charter flight and even convert a passenger flight into a cargo to fetch the essential shipments.”

A big supporter of digital adoption in the pharma sector, Rao talks about Sun Pharma's flexible HR policies during the pandemic and motivating employees by providing insurance policies to boost their morale and addressing them as Corona Warriors with a mission.

There is a consensus among leading companies that the Indian pharma sector is witnessing demand both domestically as well as across the globe. Owing to growing anti-China sentiments and border skirmishes, many feel that derisking themselves on supply from China is important. Among the key suggestions is complete backward integration, ensuring multiple vendors for continuity in supplies, and stocking key APIs to tackle any future emergency. Sharing his thoughts on de-risking of supply chains, Saikat Ghosh, Associate Partner, EY India, says, “Local manufacturing has been debated at length, and many international regulations have come up in developed countries. Many global generic companies are also talking about manufacturing being done with local manufacturers.”

Despite being largely a volatile year for the pharmaceutical industry, it has managed to emerge stronger. Most of the industry analysts agree that it has got all the ingredients to touch new heights yet are skeptical about the realistic support from the government. Hopefully, India will build on the pandemic experience and not miss the bus again.