Big Pharma Rescripts India Playbook

Foreign firms have been re-calibrating activities in India over the recent past, with some handing over marketing of mature brands to local partners and others effecting layoffs to fine-tune their go-to-market model. Divestment of non-core products and sites that have been underutilized or hit by altered market dynamics have also formed part of these reviews.

India - Pharma’s Data Services Hub?

Playing out alongside some of the India cutbacks is the notably upbeat tenor of MNCs like Roche, Bayer and Novo Nordisk in India, especially around the launch pipeline and amping up capacity and capabilities in the data science/services area.

Roche for one sees India is a “massive priority market”, amid the Swiss group’s Pharma Vision 2030 that hopes to provide three to five times more patient benefit at 50% cost to society by that time-frame.

Roche has accelerated launch timelines and has a pipeline of 20-plus new products and indication extensions planned for the next three to five years in India across oncology, hematology, ophthalmology and neurology. It has rolled out in India products like Hemlibra (emicizumab) within 14 months of the international debut, while Evrysdi (risdiplam) hit the Indian market within 10 months of the US launch. This, versus a 24-36 month India debut lag generally seen in industry about five to six years ago.

In 2020 Roche made a ‘big shift’ in its India strategy, adopting a new cluster operating model and took “some bold steps” in its portfolio strategy with an aim to “focus on the core” and partner for the rest.

"We have made many key leadership hires in line with our operating model. Driving access to our innovations is our single biggest priority," V Simpson Emmanuel, CEO and MD, Roche Pharma India, told In Vivo.

On the data front, Roche has set up its second Global Analytics and Technology Centers of Excellence (GATE) in Hyderabad, the first being in Chennai. The company aims to use big data analytics to help it gain better understanding of the patient journey and partner more effectively with physicians, hospitals and other healthcare providers. “GATE is working on building strong knowledge of the healthcare landscape across different countries and utilizing its expertise in data science and advanced analytics to serve its global affiliates,” Emmanuel said.

A few years ago, Bayer had similarly set up a data science analytics center in Hyderabad and has been expanding capabilities. “It's not just the data manager, the data leads, but also typically biostatistician roles, roles at senior level in the R&D structure, which are not always doing the R&D work for India, but also globally,” Manoj Saxena, Country Division Head – South Asia, Bayer Pharmaceuticals Pvt. Ltd, said at a recent industry do.

Pfizer is also engaged in data analytics, data management, and using digital as a platform; it sees significant talent available in India to engage and participate in global product development from a data and digital platform standpoint.

Ex-GSK executive Kallianpur said that it is no secret that India offers some of the world’s best and low cost digital data management and analytical centres making it a destination for most MNC off-shoring and pharma is no exception.

“India is being extensively evaluated as a possible hub for offshoring data storage, management and analytical needs. Since this is expected to be the fulcrum of the pharma industry in the future, this is likely to be pharma’s IT-like moment for India.”

While the realignment and cutbacks have raised concerns around big pharma’s waning interest in the ultra-competitive and largely out-of-pocket Indian...