The Indian Pharmaceutical industry is a sunrise industry with a competitive advantage for India. We should leverage India’s position by unleashing entrepreneurial spirit through policy stability and ecosystem,”
Sudarshan Jain,IPA Secretary General
The World Pharmaceutical Industry is the best combination of Demand, Supply, Regulatory affairs and policies. The Industry witnessed an impactful wave in a very short span during 2020 because of COVID-19. This wave has brought Indian Pharmaceutical sector in the front line. A transactional phase for manufacturing, marketing, distribution and branding for the pharma market have already commenced for Indian Pharma companies. Currently, the Pharmaceutical industry of India supplies over half of the global demand for various vaccines and generic products. India is considered as the second largest contributor for global pharmaceutical and biotech human resources. Cost of production is comparatively lower than the US and almost half of Europe because of many resources which are easily and widely available in India. This enables the competitive advantage to the Indian pharmaceutical industry over others.
The Transactional Changes in Pharmaceutical Industry
There is an inevitable change noticed in lifestyle, working pattern, food habits, travel pattern among people at greater scale. Such cross culture connections socially and digitally boosted the health issues worldwide. The Pharma companies have diversified their R&D activity from traditional medicinal patterns to BioPharma companies. The IQVI quoted in one of its reports, ”More emerging biopharma companies (EBP) will launch new medicines in the next five years, due to shifts in strategy as well as the rising absolute number of active R&D compounds. More than one-third of drugs launched in the next five years will be brought to market by EBP companies”. The global pharmaceutical industry is expected to reach USD 1.57 trillion by 2023.
Pharmaceutical Management: A Global Masters
According to The Global Use of Medicine in 2019 and Outlook to 2023, an average of 54 new active substance (NAS) launches per year are expected over the next five years and two-thirds of launches will be specialty products, lifting specialty share of spending to near 50% by 2023 in most developed markets. To create a remarkable space in such a market the multinational companies in the pharma segment are focused to hire the fresh blood who can work on real to virtual platforms with the same level of efficiency.
To take a remarkable elementary lead in the demand race in the international market, the pharmaceutical companies now emphasize proper strategic planning and implementation. The industry is in prime requirement for well trained professionals having a perfect assortment of skills like pharmaceutical science and management to add value to business.
MBA in Pharmaceutical is one the most promising Masters Degree for the graduates from pharma, biotech and allied sectors. This study encompasses the marketing aspects of pharmaceutical business with special reference to business development in the International market, branding, sales and distribution of pharmaceutical products. There is another segment of the study, which focuses on operation management for pharmaceutical business like Project Management, Data Analytics for Pharma and Healthcare industry, Supply Chain Management and Quality Management and Global Regulatory Frameworks, which make the young professionals more employable.
Promising Placement in Pharmaceutical management
Recently The Week Magazine published in its article Nourished by increasing spending, improving accessibility and growing exports, India’s pharma and healthcare sector is poised for another year of robust growth even as pricing and cost headwinds could force players to pause to catch breath. Following table indicates among 20 major Indian industries, the Pharmaceutical industry is expected to continue as one of the highest paying sectors.
(Source:Aon Salary Increase Survey 2020, industry-wise hike)
The profile offered to fresh management professionals are very much versatile and challenging considering their upskilling in management area along with conceptual degree. The profiles like Business Development Manager, Sales force Driver, Brand Executives, Project Manager and Quality Assurance manager are most commonly offered to fresh MBA Pharmaceutical professionals with annual salary package ranges from 7.9 lac to 15 lacs (payscale.com, March 2020). Even the profiles like Purchase Officer, Supply Chain Executives, Healthcare Operations Executives, Corporate Relationship Executives – Healthcare Industry also gets the offer with annual pay package from 3 lacs to 6.5 lac. Pioneered Institutes who are offering pharmaceutical management programs in India have secured 100% placement.
Nestle, GSK, Johnson & Johnson, Intas pharmaceuticals, Zydus Cadila, Torrent Pharmaceuticals, ManKind Pharma, Walter Bushnell India, Sun Pharmaceutical, Lupin, Cipla Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories are some of the top multinationals who prefer MBA Pharmaceutical Degree on priority at the time of hiring. The Health care companies and Hospital Chains like Shalby Hospitals, Apollo Hospitals, CIMS also have initiated to recruit the MBA Pharmaceutical students from intenraships to final placement.
India pharma sector also provides Entrepreneurial Opportunities in areas like manufacturing of formulations, raw material, nutraceutical products, cosmetic products, Veterinary products, Ayurveda/Herbal products, Surgical products. They can also start Contract manufacturing, C & F Agents, Distributorship /stockist, Pharmacy Retail chain business. Developing a unit of Pharma machinery, Pharma packing material, Pharma label and printing and Pharma Consultancy is also another entrepreneurial opportunity to start a new venture.
Contributor
Prof.(Dr.) Maurvi Vasavada– academic professional who focuses on developing Industry oriented teaching- learning practises to confine the gap between Industry demand and academic skills of young professionals; works to align the academic and corporate expertise on the same platform worldwide by adopting innovative teaching pedagogy; believes Research and Practical learning are the key driving factors to create the employable workforce for the industry.
