Sachin Jagdale & Usha Sharma – Mumbai
Huge crowds thronging stalls and booths, inquisitive visitors making inquiries about products is a usual sight at the CPhI-P-MEC India. This year’s exhibition too stood up to its reputation, which was visited by industry professionals and experts from India and overseas. Exhibitors were particularly delighted as this event largely helps them to consolidate their client lists. The 2013 edition witnessed participation from 1000 plus exhibitors from 95 countries, and was attended by nearly 30,000 attendees from 109 countries.
One of the exhibitors, Ashvin Patel, Business Director, IMCD India, said, “At CPhI India we get quality people, which matters the most to us. New clients are always important but we also want to retain our persent customers. We want to grow with both our new and existing customers.”
Vijay Ramanavarapu, Procurement Head, Granules India, echoes Patel’s views. He said, “CPhI India is an useful event for Granules because it is an opportunity to meet with our customers and suppliers.” He adds, “Given how there are multiple CPhI events around the world, we can constantly connect with our key customers and suppliers which helps us facilitate our business. CPhI is also useful to understand market dynamics as well as meeting new suppliers and customers.”
ACG has always remained one of the most visited and sought after stalls at P-MEC. While reiterating that such events do give a chance to meet customers, Dr Shirish Dhande, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer, ACG Pam Glatt Pharma Technologie informs that P-MEC India also allows industry professionals to learn and keep abreast of new technologies. He says, “We get to meet international and domestic clients at P-MEC India. Besides retaining old customers we always get new customers as well. Here at P-MEC, we get to know new perspectives of our clients about our machinery. As every year, this year too, we are getting good response from our clients.”
Visitors also attended technical seminars. Speakers from India and abroad presented their views on different topics. One of the speakers, Dr Pramod Kharatmol, Application Scientist (Bioprocess Development), Avantor Performance Materials India, opined about the importance of such seminars. He says, “The technical seminars always give more knowledge in less time. Also, they represent the current, most demanding trends in the market. Technical seminars increase the awareness of industrially driven objectives and they are very useful for collaborations and getting acquainted ourselves with new necessary things.”
Arjun Khurana, Managing Director, Officina Farmaceutica Italiana (OFI) said, “For us, participating in CPhI India has become a nice opportunity to meet global exhibitors at a single platform.”
Sunny Bali, Deputy Manager International Marketing, IOL Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals mentioned, “This is a great platform to connect with our customer and initiate for newer one. We have been participating in this event for almost seven to eight years now and seen growing this event every year. We are exporting our products to 60-70 countries and this gives us an opportunity to meet our old clients and distributors. For us this years CPhI India experience was good. During the show, we have received a good number of business inquiries and post the event we will work on these.”
Girish M Dhameja, Exports Manager, Coral Laboratories opined, “This year we have seen quality crowd during the (CPhI India) show. I am very optimistic this time and hoping that it will capitalise my investment which I have already invested in participating the event. For me this is a quite enriching and learning experience.”
Suresh Pareek, Managing Director, Ideal Cures said, “The size of the (CPhI India) event is getting larger year by year and since 2008 we have been facing infrastructure problems. In the evening it becomes chaotic and very difficult to reach our destinations. Apart from this, this is a good event to meet our old customers and gradually the show is becoming a meeting point. This year we have launched our new mobile app and we have received good response for it from our customers and visitors. When we compare the global CPhI with CPhI India we feel there is less participation from North America, Europe and African countries.”
Vikas Acharya, Director India, Gerresheimer Pharmaceutical Packaging, said, “From day one itself we have received overwhelming response at our stall. We feel that this time and basically this show is becoming networking platform for people like us. Also, we felt that visitors do not come with serious business in mind. However, we are happy because we had pre-planned our meetings for all three days and accordingly we maintained and managed to get maximum out of it. Also, I like to highlight that inspite of spending so much amount for participating in the show there is no proper logistical support.”
Rahul Dev, Vice President Operations India, Datwyler opined, “This year we have registered a good turnout. In fact, on the first day of the show, the number of participants were overwhelming which we were actually not anticipating. I strongly feel that UBM has to seriously look after the infrastructure part. When we talk about the CPhI – P-MEC show, we talk about high-end technologies, life saving drugs but when we go out of the event venue we really get scared with the traffic conditions. International visitors have had a really bad experience and feel that the China event is any time better.”
Melanie Cacciottolo, Global Marketing Manager – Pharma Nutrition and Functional Ingredients, Kerry Ingredients and Flavours, said, “Like every year, this year too we have received a good amount of crowd at our store. During the event, we came to know about new technologies which were introduced in the market and other things associated with the pharma industry. I feel that this event is becoming one stop solution. I suggest that UBM should look around for a bigger venue as the event is growing every year and considering this they should work on finding new venues.”
Thus, barring logistical issues, the feedback from this year’s CPhI India and P MEC India were extremely positive. The organisers have a year to work out these wrinkles and given their global track record, the 2014 event promises not just to be bigger but also a smoother experience.