bl interview. The effort is to stay focused, do things that are globally competitive: Glenmark Pharma CMD

The unpredictability when it comes to global policies — what challenges do you forsee? 

I would break it up into multiple buckets — one is big pharma, and they have different challenges, including tariff discussions and pricing in the United States. They will have to look at how they reinvent themselves. Then there’s the generic businesses — they are pretty solid because they operate from the bottom of the pyramid, so there is little margin, costs are always under pressure, and so you’re fighting every day to bring down costs, to get some incremental pricing. A big chunk of India’s (drugmakers) is in that bucket. Then you have few of us, trying to aspire to move beyond generics, to becoming more innovative.

So our challenges are different — it’s in the ability to make that transition. Very few have made that transition, so this is a hard road and Glenmark has been doing this for 25 years now. This is not for the faint-hearted. To get one ISB2001 is technically 25 years of work, to get one drug which can actually transform therapy in multiple myeloma is a different challenge altogether. (ISB 2001 is part of the Ichnos Glenmark Innovation (IGI) pipeline — an alliance between Glenmark’s US-based biotech subsidiary Ichnos Sciences and GPL.)

In our existing business, we’ve created a strong platform in three therapeutic areas, built a global footprint, strong India business with very strong brands, ₹13,500-14,000 crore last year from core business — that’s coming out of a solid foundation. And on top of that we are layering the innovative space.

Deals that countries make with each other are giving rise to more unknowns — does it give you sleepless nights? 

The place Indian players are at — there is only upside potential, independent of what happens on the US policy side, because if there is generics to be got, it has to come from one of the Indian players. Costs are at rock bottom, so even some of the Indian players struggle to manage costing. I am not so concerned — consumption, demand, all those things will keep growing.I think globally we are in a good place. 

It’s nearly two years since you sold Glenmark Life Sciences, and now you talk of a transformational deal on a drug candidate? What did you mean? 

The ISB 2001 is best in class in a $ 30 billion market. It is a drug which can actually transform therapy in the multiple myeloma space — so for patients, the impact it can have eventually is transformational. For most patients who came onto ISB 2001 — it came in as last line of therapy, they’ve gone through six other lines of therapy, and then come onto ISB 2001 — so if this didn’t exist, they would have passed.

So first thing, is saving lives — being transformational, from that perspective, extending life and making impact; and then the market size, deal size, partnerships..

What is the timeline for a licencing deal on this candidate? 

I think it will happen pretty soon, that’s why I can’t give you a timeline.

You are not buoyant on the diabetes drugs segment, why? 

At a global level, we are in dermatology, respiratory, and oncology. So diabetes is not a therapeutic area for us globally. In India, we have a cardiovascular and a diabetes venture. And the GLP-1 (including diabetes and weight-loss drugs like semaglutide) space is huge. So semaglutide is part of the basket of products in diabetes, but we don’t claim any transformational launch.

Now we are extremely focused on trying to do certain activities, where we can be globally competitive.

There was restructuring in consumer health care — where employees were let go; closure of IGI’s Switzerland facility — is the restructuring process over? 

This is part of normal business. Consumer care is almost a ₹500 crore business — we are changing the channels, going more mass media etc. So, restructuring is common — for any company of our size and scale, we’ll always do some restructuring to drive efficiencies.