GSK plans revamp for 3-fold rise in sales

NEW DELHI: India’s largest drug maker GlaxoSmithKline, which announced changes in its top management on Thursday, is gearing up for a major realignment in its business here for a three-fold growth in sales to Rs 4,500 crore in the next few years.

The new gameplan is to acquire and in-license new brands, shift primary focus from acute diseases to chronic diseases for more long-term customers and to significantly upscale vaccine business, contract manufacturing, collaborative research and clinical trial related services, GSK Pharmaceuticals Ltd, India managing director Kal Sundaram told ET on Friday.

GSK had on Thursday announced that Mr Sundaram, who is also the Anglo-American drug maker’s South Asia vice president, would move to GSK International, which takes care of all major markets outside the US, EU and Japan.

Analysts expect that Mr Sundaram, who established the company in India against stiff competition from generic rivals, may be assigned similar emerging economies as India inches closer to developed markets in the product patent regime.

“In a country where, according to the WHO, 30 crore people live with less than a dollar a day, the market is highly competitive, dynamic and prices are at the lowest in the world,” Mr Sundaram described the Indian market.

He, however, declined to comment on the new assignment awaited. GSK International covers regions like Singapore, China, Indonesia, Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa.

GSK, which has struck seven in-licensing deals in the last three years to sell blockbuster products of other MNCs in the Indian market, is looking at more similar deals.

This would include both mass-use drugs as well as high value medicines, said Mr Sundaram. Besides bolstering its vaccines business, GSK would also look at stepping up clinical data management services substantially.

India now has a Rs 400 crore private vaccine market and another Rs 1,000 crore government purchases. With 2.5 crore new born babies every year and the government’s active plans on adult vaccination, the company is quite bullish on this front.

“We are open to expand research in India, including collaborative research such as the one we have with Ranbaxy and also data analysis,” said Mr Sundaram. GSK is also about to upscale its procurement of bulk drugs and contract manufacturing deals with domestic companies.

Now, nearly half of its sales come from custom manufacturing deals. GSK expects that its sales would reach Rs 2,250 crore in the next four years and at Rs 4,500 crore in another five years, from last year’s Rs 1,575 crore as a result of aggressive expansion.