Seeking New Horizons
The number of pharma professionals donning the cap of an entrepreneur has increased with a speed like never before over the last one decade. Peter Drucker, renowned nanagement consultant, once said, “The entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity.” This statement rightly describes the mentality of new breed of pharma entrepreneurs.
In quest of new
Chetan Tamhankar, Founder and Director, Zhi Holistic spent many years of his professional life in the CRO industry. India’s leading CRO, Siro Clinpharm, grew under Tamhankar’s able leadership. However, he left many of his industry colleagues surprised, not because he decided to leave Siro Clinpharm, but because he ventured into the health and wellness business. Tamhankar’s experience in CRO industry would have helped him in a great way had he started his own CRO, however, his foray into a completely new segment of the business increased the curiosity levels across the entire CRO industry.
Tamhankar says, “Having contributed to building India’s pioneering CRO—SIRO Clinpharm in the first 16 years of my career, I thought of experimenting with a different idea. The new venture is in the health and wellness area, where I have put together several elements of health and wellness solutions – international standard spa service, yoga studio, treatment of chronic illnesses using ayurvedic and natural medicine, diet and nutrition consulting and laboratory services.” While explaining the rationale behind venturing into this business other than the CRO, he says, “My business in health and wellness service venture, while earlier work was with clinical research services. So, though the business offerings are different both are service businesses. Of course, SIRO Clinpharm was a B2B business, while the new project is in retail.”
Vishal Sharma and Ivy Louis, Founder and Director, Vienni Training and Consulting LLP, spent many years in the pharma sector. Now they have their own consultancy for the pharma industry.
 “Challenges and risks are plenty in every field. The achievement of having set up an organisation grows when you find there are people who are willing to risk their standing and join you.”Ivy Louis Founder & Director, Vienni Training and Consulting LLP |
“The training and consulting field in the biopharma and pharma has always been traditional in its approach. Breaking this barrier was the need of the hour and this prompted us in setting up a venture that deals with training and consulting,” informs Sharma. Louis says, “Vienni adds value directly and indirectly to pharma and biologic manufacturing organisations, in the area of training and development, six sigma implementation, statistical process control especially in the microbiology areas, terminal sterilisation, filtration and sterilisation, QbD–QRM-QMS, third party audits and technical due-diligence, review of microbiology activities.”
Dr Nitin Borkar is a well known name in the global pharma industry for his expertise in R&D. After spending enormous time overseas and in India, handling different responsibilities in the pharma industry, he moved on to become an entrepreneur. Today, Borkar is the Founder Partner and Chief Executive Officer of Goa-based VerGo Pharma Research. His company is into CRO business. He had an ambition of becoming an entrepreneur. Today, VerGo is shaping up to become a leading CRO of India.
“By nature, I have a drive to be an entrepreneur with an innovative bent of mind. In the past 30 years, R&D with emphasis on quality has been my passion. These were the two drivers, supported by luck which pushed me in this field of contract research,” says Borkar.
Presently, VerGo has three divisions: Pharma Research, Organics and Clinicals, involved in product development, custom synthesis and clinical research respectively. This unique CRO platform provides end-to-end service for all the development activities for the global healthcare industry. The company also has a joint venture with VerGo PharmAZet to provide all regulatory, distribution and quality services in Europe.
 “You need to be an expert juggler with regards to handling all jobs as they come to you. Be it certain administrative jobs, sending couriers, making your own presentations, anything that ends up on your table.”Prakash Shanware President and CEO, People First |
Prakash Shanware, President and Chief Executive Officer, People First, spent more than three decades in the pharma industry and is hardly left with anything new to experiment with in his domain of expertise. “I had a long pending desire to do something on my own and hence switched from corporate to being an entrepreneur,” reveals Shanware. He adds, “I also realised that after reaching the highest level in your career, what you will continue to do will be what you have been doing in the past years and hence wanted to now start my second innings of being totally independent. I work in the human resources domain, from consulting, OD to training and coaching and also help organisations in carrying out senior leadership level talent acquisition, specifically for the pharma sector and life-sciences space.”
Deepak Naik, was Managing Director with a leading pharma MNC. However, like other pharma professionals he too moved out to test his entrepreneurial skills. Today Naik is the Managing Director of his own company Health‘N’U Therapeutics. His company is engaged in importing and marketing pharma products in India. “I had decided that I should fulfill all my career objectives by the age of 45 and then turn entrepreneur,” he informs.
Experience matters
According to industry experts, experienced individuals are more likely to have the potential to become successful entrepreneurs and new entrepreneurs too endorse this fact. However, it should be mentioned that experience is not the norm.
Tamhankar, who has ventured into a new business segment is hoping to apply his experience of scaling up businesses from bottom up, pushing profitability drivers to see if the same can be implemented in the new venture.
 “The field of entrepreneurship is virgin in pharma and allied sectors, although biotechnology has a different story. Many people hold themselves back and do not venture into being an entrepreneur simply because of fear, especially fear of failure.”Vishal Sharma Founder & Director, Vienni Training and Consulting LLP |
According to Sharma, the domain expertise is a line that gives one a head-start, but as we progress, it will be the ingenuity and the out-of-box thinking that nurtures the business, yet maintaining a fine balance between retaining the strengths of what was learnt and shedding what is not appropriate can put one into a tizzy.
“Experience is helping me tremendously. Throughout my career I established, improved business, launched and developed brands for others. Now we are doing for it for ourselves,” states Naik.
For Borkar, the exposure of working with MNC’s, generic and OTC companies in the US, India, China and Europe has given him the perspective and experience to handle all aspects of the business. “The exposure to R&D-driven allied fields such as regulatory, quality, manufacturing and pharma engineering has given me the confidence to direct a CRO programme,” asserts Borkar.
“Since a large part of my experience has been in the pharma sector, I understand the challenges and complexities of the sector,” says Shanware. Talking of the benefits that experienced individuals get, Shanware points out, “Experience enabled me to contribute more by identifying the right candidates for the company, keeping in mind the cultural aspects of the individual and company. For other areas in human resources, having first hand exposure with varied sectors like the pharma, agro chemical and even electronics, provide me with a deeper insight on all HR matters.”
Not without challenges
Working for an established organisation and establishing a business house by himself are two different things altogether. Responsibilities and liabilities increase many fold in the later scenario. Newly crowned entrepreneurs know that building a corporate house is not going to be a cakewalk.
“The biggest challenge after becoming an entrepreneur is to live without the fancy of designation, perks and power. The next big challenge is capital and talent,” opines Naik.
 “The exposure to R&D driven allied fields such as regulatory, quality, manufacturing and pharma engineering has given me the confidence to direct a CRO programme.”Dr Nitin Borkar Founder Partner & CEO, VerGo Pharma Research |
While describing technical challenges Borkar says, “The challenges are many but the major ones are acquiring land in a developed industrial park, getting electricity quota, and also timely approvals from government bodies. The two major risks were to correctly budget the financial layout and avoid execution overages and manage the influence of world economy and the monetary fluctuations.”
Shanware explains a few more facets of challenging scenarios. He says, “You need to be an expert juggler with regards to handling all jobs as they come to you. Be it certain administrative jobs, sending couriers, making your own presentations, anything that ends up on your table. Distributing your time into core and non-core operations is another challenge.”
 “You may make business plans on excel spreadsheets, but real understanding will come after reviewing the way business shapes up. If one realises that the business does not deliver what it was expected to deliver, then one must be ready to take tough decisions as well.”Chetan Tamhankar Founder & Director, Zhi Holistic |
“Challenges and risks are plenty in every field. The achievement of having to set up an organisation grows when you find there are people who are willing to risk their standing and to join you,” asserts Louis. Sharma feels that the field of entrepreneurship is virgin in pharma and allied sectors, although biotechnology has a different story. “Many people hold themselves back and do not venture into being an entrepreneur simply because of fear, especially fear of failure,” criticises Sharma.
As Tamhankar moved away from his field of expertise, for him, his new venture was altogether a new experience. Challenges are given for any new start up but for Tamhankar who is a newbie to health and wellness business, conditions are perhaps even more challenging. Tamhankar describes, “Getting new customers, differentiating, making sure you deliver consistent and high quality results to your customer, motivating teams are the key challenges. As mentioned earlier, the new venture is like an experiment for me, to see if a venture in retail is scalable, well differentiated model or not.” He adds, “You may make business plans on excel spreadsheets, but real understanding will come after reviewing the way business shapes up. If one realises the business does not deliver what it was expected to deliver, then one must be ready to take tough decisions as well.”
More to come
The entrepreneurs mentioned in this article are just a small sample of the many in the industry. If these entrepreneurs themselves are to be believed, there is long queue of pharma professionals who are all set to take a dose of the medicine manufactured in their own factory.
“This trend of entrepreneurship will certainly grow and allow a variety of business models to flourish. An entrepreneur will be willing to take this risk when he/she knows that their idea is worth pursuing and is unique in entirety,” says Sharma. “I am aware of many people getting into a new business and I guess it will continue,” informs Tamhankar. According to Shanware, although it is a tough call to move from a lucrative corporate job to an uncertain challenging transition, the tough people opt for it.
Pharma professionals are trying to do something new and innovative. However, new moves and ideas should be backed by right strategies and accurate executions. After all, there is no use of wind if one doesn’t know in which direction to sail.
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