After being one of the major players in the US and European markets, pharma major Dr Reddy’s Laboratories is now keen on ramping up its position in the domestic market with a slew of measures. Out of a total revenue of ₹27,916 crore, its India business logged ₹4,640 crore in FY24. businessline spoke to M. V. Ramana, CEO, Branded Markets (India & Emerging Markets), Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories on the company’s plans. Excerpts:
A few years ago, the Indian market was growing in double digits because of the penetration of drugs. Today, it is growing in a single digit on account of lesser number of volume, products and price. So, if Dr Reddy’s has to grow from the current market position of 10 to five, we have to register better growth than the market itself. When we try to address unmet needs, we find that a lot of innovation that has happened in the US and Europe, and that is relevant to India, has not been brought to the domestic and emerging markets.
We started to reach out to these companies expressing our willingness to bring these products to India and have seen traction from multinational companies including biotech companies, which will help us scale up our position and strengthen the therapeutic areas.
Further, in terms ofnutrition, there are two scenarios. There are patients who need nutritional support, and there are people who are healthy and want to stay healthy.At Dr Reddy’s, a few years back we developed products that cater to the taste of Indians as a few imported products available in the market are not suitable. We collaborated with Nestle Health Sciences, a global leader in this space, and launched these products. They have a good number of brands that they are yet to launch in India.
There are about four to five products in the market right now, but they have got nearly 15 products yet to be launched in the Indian market. Along with our own products, we are studying their products to see which ones can be brought to India. There are not many players in this space in India and so, there is potential.
We have digital therapeutics. For example, we have launched a device for neuro modulation which helps patients with migraine. This has garnered good traction across cities. Growth of our Indian business will result in the growth of our base business, where we continue to grow mega brands and top it up with innovative assets, consumer health and digital products.
We are open to any inorganic opportunity that comes our way, provided it fits our paradigm of business and priority areas.
It is large, say about ₹20,000 crore. If we take only medical nutrition, that is about ₹1,500 crore to ₹2,000 crore. Our idea is to start with medical nutrition and segue into broader segments by launching products like Nestle’s Nature’s Bounty.
In the US and Europe, it is about launching the products we have in the pipeline and a couple of them will be in the complex generics category. It is also about the launch of biosimilars. As we get into FY27, as of now, we seem to be the front-runner in launching the first biosimilar in the US, Europe and rest of the world. We want to leverage our product portfolio in the US and Europe and bring them to the emerging markets where we have presence in 45 countries. We are also in the process of broad basing our business instead of depending on a single market. For example, we are now in Asia, North Africa, South Africa, Russia, CIS countries and Latin America. We are more sustainable than earlier. In India, we will continue to build our innovative assets and consumer health portfolio.
Published on December 4, 2024
