With a spot in the top three as its target, Mankind Pharma, currently eighth-ranked, is focusing on chronic therapies and exports for growth impetus
Ramesh C Juneja, founder of Mankind Pharma, works out of the first floor of an ordinary-looking building in the dusty Okhla industrial area of New Delhi. The simple exterior of his office belies the fact that this company, born in 1995, is now the eighth-largest pharmaceutical company in India (as per ORG IMS rankings). But people who have interacted with the promoters of Mankind point out that the unfussiness of the premises reflects the organisational culture. “The honesty and simplicity of the promoters percolates down the ranks. It is a quality that wins you over,” says Sanjiv D Kaul, managing director of ChrysCapital, a private equity firm which has 11 percent stake in Mankind.
Kaul fondly calls Juneja, 59, bhaisaab, or ‘big brother’ (“as does everyone else in the pharma industry”), a moniker originally held by the late Bhai Mohan Singh, the founder of Ranbaxy. That begs the question: Can Mankind live up to the name and become as formidable a player as Ranbaxy Laboratories, one of India’s largest pharmaceutical companies? (On April 7, Sun Pharmaceutical announced its decision to buy Ranbaxy Laboratories in a $3.2 billion all-share deal.)
Well, should it fall short, it won’t be for lack of ambition: Mankind’s goal, according to its website, is to become the No. 1 pharma company in India by 2015.
It is a lofty undertaking—even the promoters admit in private that this is an improbable target. But Rajeev Juneja, senior director (marketing & sales) and Ramesh’s younger brother, points out that they were within touching range: “We would have made it had Abbott not bought Piramal. There were many acquisitions in the industry. If they had not happened, we would have reached No. 1 position.” He is, perhaps, basing his statement on the past growth of Mankind.
Revenues, which were at Rs 3.7 crore in 1995-96, have scaled up to Rs 3,000 crore. Leading player Ranbaxy, in comparison, had Rs 10,600 crore in sales as of December, 2013. (Ranbaxy’s financial year was from January-December.)
Kaul says Mankind’s growth is remarkable. “I don’t believe it will be No. 1 by 2015 but it will be huge if they enter the top five players segment by then,” he says, adding that while the top seven players by market share—Abbott, Cipla, Sun Pharma, Ranbaxy, Zydus Cadila, Alkem and GSK according to IMS rankings—have grown through mergers and acquisitions, “Mankind is the only company that has grown organically”.
This optimism is rooted in a two-pronged plan, going forward. One: Scaling up its chronic drugs business which currently contributes around 15 percent of revenue; the target is to increase this to 30 percent. Two: Expanding export activity, negligible at present, as the domestic market alone won’t take Mankind into the top three bracket. In the next year, it plans to target 13 countries—at present, it exports a few FMCG products and generic drugs to Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Indonesia.
Ramesh Juneja began his career in 1975 as a medical representative for Lupin Pharma. He quit in 1983 to start BestoChem Pharma with his brothers (Rajeev and Girish) and a partner Vijay Prakash; they had Rs 1 lakh as seed capital. The company sold painkillers and antibiotics sourced from contract manufacturers.
In 1995-96, when the company’s turnover was Rs 10 crore, the family exited the business over differences with the partner. Ramesh and Rajeev used the Rs 50 lakh—the amount they got as their share—to start Mankind Pharma from their hometown, Meerut, in Uttar Pradesh. They identified focus markets, drawing from insights gained by Ramesh during his stint as a medical representative. “I had travelled across UP and knew that medical representatives typically ignore doctors in small towns,” he says.
In its early years, the company sold low-priced painkillers and antibiotics sourced from other producers but branded as Mankind. Its first manufacturing plant came up only in 2001, in Paonta Sahib, Himachal Pradesh. “If you look at the Indian pharma market as a pyramid [comprising factors such as type of therapy, doctor specialisation, drug pricing], most of the companies operated in the middle of the pyramid and the leading companies focussed on the top,” says Kaul. But Mankind felt there was value at the bottom of the pyramid. “Knowingly or unknowingly, it was following the Walmart model of operating from the periphery before moving into the centre.”
A PwC report values the Indian pharmaceutical market at Rs 72,069 crore as of 2013. Chronic therapies (cardio, gastro, central nervous system and anti-diabetic) have outperformed the market for the past four years and are growing 14 percent faster than acute therapies (anti-infectives, respiratory, pain and gynecology), which are growing at 9.6 percent.
In fact, that’s exactly the plan. Sanjay Koul, associate vice president - product management team at Mankind, says, “You have to give hospitals good margins, so that they push your product. We will take a margin hit to capture market share in the oncology segment.”
(This story appears in the 16 May, 2014 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)