A Message to All
The Indian Pharmaceutical industry today is in the front rank of India’s science-based industries with wide ranging capabilities in the complex field of drug manufacture and technology. A highly organized sector, the Indian Pharma industry is estimated to be worth $20 billion, growing at about 8 to 9 percent annually by virtue of its quality producers and many units approved by regulatory authorities in USA and UK. The sector is highly fragmented with more than 20000 registered units and has expanded drastically in the last two decades. It is an extremely fragmented market with severe price competition and government price control and the leading 250 pharmaceutical company’s control 70% of the market with market leader holding nearly 7% of the market share.
Throughout the preceding itinerary, “Ind Swift”, whilst taking the strong initiatives to address emerging opportunities prevailing in this organized and high ranked industry, performed drastically; the extent of that sky-scraping growth, which your company has attained shall be justifiably perceptible if we glimpse at ORG/IMS statistics for the year 2004-05 when “Ind Swift” was ranked out at the 119th position in contrast to today when, cutting short that great gap, we are at No.35 among top 300 Pharma industries according to ORG/IMS. This amazing reflection could be observed by means of advanced international operations, marketing, Research & development and state-of-art manufacturing facilities.
Our domestic strategies include our robust hold in the major therapeutic segments viz. Diabtology, cardiovascular, anesthesiology and Oncology where we possess a substantial market share via introducing various new products. Apart from existing in multifarious segment, other extensive therapeutic segments in which we have achieved a good market share are Gynecology and pediatrics. Various new products have been planned to be launched in the upcoming phases through our 9 segment specific marketing divisions with 1500 strong field strength aiming to reach the maximum number of customers (over 3 lac doctors and same number of Chemists outlets) and strong distribution network to fulfill the market demand.
Another element of our domestic strategies is our state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities. After commissioning a cGMP/WHO unit in Baddi, we were successful in commissioning another one the same zone for soft gelatin encapsulation with an annual capacity of 36 crore. Upgradations as per WHO standards were also executed in the existing facilities at Parwanoo. Not only this, our GBU got MHRA & TGA approval.
Our Global strategies include our formulation business wherein the operations have been strengthened further with commercial launch of the company in Tanzania and Nigeria in Africa; Combodia, Myanmar, Vietman and Sri Lanka in Asia and by achieving tie ups with leading distributors for the France Phone countries, Ethiopia and Zambia in Africa; Yemen and UAE in ME; Moldova, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan in CIS. A successful award of tenders in Sri Lanka was another highlight for our Global Business Unit. We have also increased focus on the Latin American operations in order to expedite start of commercial operations and to increase the potential of business.
Since R&D is the key to the future of every pharmaceutical industry, we have advanced for considerable enhancement in this area also by coming up with a separate $12mn R&D centre. In addition, we have been competent enough to work out on non infringing processes, Novel drug delivery systems, dossiers, stability data profiling, and conceptualization of new molecules (and therefore a number of product combinations have been developed and are ready to be launched by our marketing divisions). We are also involved in creating alliances for CRAMS (especially contract research) to make it contribute 30% of profits. After delivering two major contracts, we are hopeful to attain more contracts on product development. Efforts are also being applied for getting approvals for a Bioequivalence centre which will further strengthen our R&D basket. Not only this, unique combinations/NDDS of single molecule are awaiting launch this year.
Also, Ind Swift has laid sparkling footsteps on diversification front especially in the areas of Infrastructures, media & publications and software development. Another key area, where Ind Swift has made a robust clutch is Education especially related to Industry oriented courses and medical health care under the society named “Swift Institute of Research and Education”. Under this flagship, we have come up with “Swift Institute” which is exclusively diverse from the plenteous private educational instituitions cropping up in North India, where we have instituted six months Industrial Training Courses in Pharmaceutical Sciences, for Operator Level Training which has enabled the 10th /10+2 students to start careers in this booming Pharma industry & uptil now we have already trained and placed more than 400 students at Ind Swift which we feel contributes a lot to the skilled manpower scarce industry. Also, we have recently forayed up with a Pharmacy college at Rajpura with the name & style of “Swift school of Pharmacy” and “Swift Institute of Nursing” and is a unique state-of-the-art with the best of specifications also. The Institute has become operational by the year 2008-09 with an intake of 60 students in the field of Pharmacy and Nursing each.
Also, we manifest to be imminent with Engineering, Architecture, Management, Hotel Management, General Management, Schools of Dentistry, Ayurveda, Physiotherapy and Medical Technology and finally a medical college with its functioning operational by 2010-11 under the budget of Rs 250 crore with a specific target on Medical Tourism.
We are optimistic that these initiatives in conjunction with our focused strategic direction will help us to grow 30-40% annually and subsequently increasing wealth in the hands of our valued shareholders.
Mr.S.R.Mehta (Chairman)