Pharma and the Covid19 Crisis – An Interaction with Sunil Attavar, CMD, Group Pharma

This is the first part of MedicinMan interview series with pharma business leaders to make sense of the Covid19 crisis and its impact on healthcare industry. Subscribe to MedicinMan to get regular updates of interactions with pharma business leaders.

MedicinMan: Give our readers, a sense of what is happening in the pharma industry since the corona virus outbreak. What are the main areas of impact? How are Indian Pharma leaders responding to these challenges and what are the timelines that they are looking at in terms of the current situation?

I have seen a wide range of reactions from the industry. Some companies were very proactive, and started taking steps to defend  their businesses in March. This is also reflected in the AWACS data. On the other hand, there are a few companies who are still in denial and expect that all this will pass and things will be back to normal soon. However, a vast majority of us over the last 45 days or more, have come to understand that the impact of this pandemic is going to be far reaching. While the immediate business impact is going to be severe, the period of pain may last between 12 to 18 months and beyond and we need to start acting now.

After the initial shock, companies have been considering a number of strategies to protect themselves now and in the long term.

The first consideration was how do we keep our field staff motivated and occupied. Within a few days, the entire product management  ,marketing , sales and training teams  started online meetings, discussions, training programmes, etc. This was so that the representatives and managers in the field were connected, motivated and were also utilizing this time to develop themselves. In our company we started the 21+1 initiative to invest our energies to the next day after the shutdown.

Slowly realizing that the lockdown would be extended beyond the initial three weeks, companies had to find ways to connect with their doctors. This led to a huge rise in webinars and other digital engagements. Unfortunately, this became too much for doctors. While they were used to having 20 or 30 Medical Reps visiting them, now they had the same number of emails inviting them for webinars.

Manufacturing companies to a great extent were not as affected, as they were expected to produce whatever they could to ensure the availability of medicines was not disrupted. I must take this opportunity to commend the fantastic efforts made by the various government departments who practically worked 24/7 and were available to take every decision that was necessary for the running of factories.

No doubt there have been a lot of challenges in terms of manpower, transportation and availability of raw materials, which is slowly easing.

In the last few weeks, companies have gotten into a huddle to plan how to address the situation on a 12 to 18 month basis. Some of these areas include rationalizing of product portfolios, re-thinking the visit strategies, increasing the digital connect, and planning enhanced digital marketing efforts.

There is no doubt that the fundamentals such as the number of patients a doctor sees or reps visiting doctors is going to change in the long term, if not permanently. Companies are working towards the best adoption strategies and will need to become more efficient, innovative and adaptable.

To mitigate the business loss, some companies have moved into the medical devices segment by making PPEs, sanitisers and other essentials. Companies are considering adding immune-boosting products and ancillary additives to help support their growth plans. Exports will be another area that will open up for the Indian pharma industry given the excellent brand equity that we have gained in the last few months . We have truly reinforced our position as being the Pharmacy of the World

The speed and efficiency at which the industry responded to the requests for essential medicines has earned us substantial respect. This will give the industry the much needed boost we need to grab the opportunity within the domestic market and especially for the MSME sector.

I believe that if a company (especially a MSME) has to grow in the coming days, it will either need to own a segment or own a geography. Resources are going to be difficult to come by and spreading them thin will not work.

In the next round of the interaction, Sunil Attavar will respond to the challenges of adopting digital in Pharma.

In the meantime, do join the Digital Excellence Pharma Academy, a partnership between MedicinMan and CredoWeb to facilitate digital adoption in pharma by equipping pharma professionals with the knowledge and skills through a series of 40+ webinars, virtual discussions and other online resources from May 2020 to April 2021.

What does the future look like?

Get a sense of Pharma Marketing in the post #Covid19 times.

Ref: Lockdown hits output of pharma firms https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/business/lockdown-hits-output-of-pharma-firms-64018#.Xrjt-M0-ooU.twitter