Wednesday, August 29, 2012

“We are focussing on being no. 1 in" India”

Mankind Pharma founder Ramesh C. Juneja speaks with B&E's Steven Philip Warner & Jayant Mundhra

A little-known entity till recently, Mankind Pharma is now one of India’s fastest-growing pharma firms. The firm’s success was initially built by its focus on rural India. Started in 1995 with the aim to serve the suffering humanity, within a span of a decade, the company has achieved what certain companies would achieve in a lifetime. The company is backed by a rich experience in the oharma industry. Its core strenghts are its 6000 plus medical representatives and an extremely strong distribution network. The Indian pharmaceutical industry is undergoing a lot of changes. And thats not it because a lot more is yet to happen. But amidst the cut-throat competitions, the pharma giant is espousing new strategies to sustain its robust growth and become the number 1 pharma comapny in India!

B&E: From its inception as a dream with an initial capital of `5 million, Mankind Pharma has turned into a mammoth worth more than `10 billion today. What were the past 15 years like?
R C Juneja (RCJ): After quitting Lupin in 1984, I went on to start a company named BestoChem. It was a family run business and both my brothers Rajeev and Girish were a part of it. The company was doing fairly well till 1994 but in 1995, one of my brother took over it. Coupled with my experience in the pharmaceutical industry, I along with my brother Rajeev and nephew Sheetal started Mankind Pharma Limited. During the initial days, we started investing in western parts of UP. We were headquartered in Meerut and clocked revenues worth Rs.4 crores in the first year itself. Some pain killers were part of the initial product line up. Soon we also came up with antibiotics.

B&E: How did you manage R&D initiatives in your initial days?
RCJ: R&D requires a minimum capital of `10 crores at an initial level to start with. We got our products manufactured through contract manufacturers under our brand name. But we have come a long way since then. When we launched Mankind Pharma, we were having around 10-12 products in our basket. Today we have over 200 products.

B&E: How has the brand evolved over the years? Have you created sub segments products? Which are the most lucrative?
RCJ: We are today ranked no. 1 in terms of prescriptions/doctors/month PAN India. Apart from Mankind Pharma we have six sub divisions namely Discovery Mankind, Life star Mankind, Future Mankind, Vet Mankind, Magnet Mankind and Special Mankind (for OTC products). Mankind Pharma is obviously the most lucrative as it is has been in the industry for 15 years. We are very optimistic about Discovery Mankind, Life Star Mankind is doing fairly well, Future Mankind is on an expansion spree and covers 2/3rd of India in terms of geographical reach, Vet Mankind and Special Mankind are also catching up fast.

B&E: Over the past two years, you have suddenly increased your advertising expenditure. Are there any particular reasons?
RCJ: For the initial 13 years, we concentrated on penetration. Our 6000 medical representatives went to doctors all over the country and we were completely over Doctor's prescriptions. That still remains our core strength till date. Then we started working on Manforce Condoms which became a runaway hit. This encouraged us to go for more promotions. We believe in advertising only products which we think need to be advertised like Unwanted-72, Manforce Condoms. We have allocated a budget of `50 crore for advertising while `28 crores has been invested so far in R&D this year.


Posted by at
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , ,