The Hindu Business Line : Ajanta Pharma de-risks international business

AJANTA Pharma is wiser from its experience in the four erstwhile Soviet markets that it exited earlier this year. After the CIS experience, Ajanta has de-risked its international business by being present in 40 countries with a basket of about 120 products to support them, said Mr Arvind Agrawal, Chief Financial Officer. "Not a single country or product contributes more than 1 per cent (of sales) and so we have our growth ensured for the next three years," he told Business Line.

Ajanta was also scouting around for licensing opportunities, where it would sell multinational products in India and use a similar licensing avenue to sell its products abroad, he said.

Reflecting on the mistakes of the CIS experience, he said, Ajanta had entered these markets in 1995, initially selling over-the-counter products. Later, it entered the herbal and the prescription drugs market.

Meanwhile, on the domestic front, Ajanta `made a mistake' and entered the bulk drugs segment that it later sold to Chennai's Orchid Pharma. As Ajanta concentrated on its core business of finished dosage forms, globally, the parity between the rouble and the dollar came down and this impacted the business, like it affected businesses around the world, he said.

About 40 per cent of the company's total sales came from the CIS markets. Ajanta exited its ventures in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in March 2005. However, it had retained its presence in Turkmenistan, where it had a 50:50 joint venture with the Government and a manufacturing base, he said. The company would now sell its products in the erstwhile Soviet markets through local distributors. And though the tie-up was for 10 years, he did not expect the severance of business ventures to have an impact on the company's sales. Promoters currently hold 62 per cent in the estimated Rs 178-crore company.

The company now has its spread in other semi-regulated markets and has opened specialist divisions catering to the ophthalmology, cardiovascular, diabetes, dermatology, gynaecology and nutraceutical segments. has demarcated the global market into six zones, India, South-East Asia, Africa, West Asia, Europe and Central Asia. It does not expect to enter the US and European markets for about two years, till it has proprietary natural products, according to Mr Agrawal. Ajanta had identified about 52 marker compounds that could be developed into medicines, he said.

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