Q With cancer on the rise, access to oncology remains a critical area…
In oncology, there are certain biology products which are not launched in many countries. When we are launching the products, we are taking it across every market we are in. Even when we launched our drugs in India, the number of patients having access to the affordable product would have tripled. In the case of hepatitis, there are about 12 million patients potentially impacted in India. We are trying to engage with them from an awareness perspective and testing point of view. Cure is available it’s not preventive. We are keeping the patient at the centre.
Q Where does Mylan go from here?
We want to continue to drive this company towards access. We call it expansion markets where we see huge scope to expand access. We are in China, but on a small scale. We have a couple of hundred people there and sell about 5-6 products. We are in Russia, through a couple of hundred people. We see many of these markets as an opportunity to expand our access and achieve critical mass. Another goal is wherever we are, we want to be in the top 10. For example, in the US we are strong, in France we are the largest company and so on. There are markets in which we have already solidified our position, but there are many more where we have an opportunity to grow further.We want to expand and continue to execute our science. That means complex products and biosimilars.
Q Does that mean more partnerships such as the one with Biocon?
It’s one thing to have a partnership, it is another to manage and execute that. But we have a successful track record. Our first was with Naco the second was biosimilars—which is a partnership with Biocon—and then we have one with Momenta around biosimilars where we have five programmes. Wherever we had some gap, we had some opportunity, we have gone ahead and partnered. We partnered with these companies to evolve and build upon the science. What we bring to the table is the regulatory compliance, experience, clinical expertise and intellectual property expertise. We will be looking for more and more [partnerships]. India is rich from a science perspective, and we don’t believe that we have even tapped, or scratched the surface of the potential here.
Q How do you strike a balance between shareholder interest and affordability?
This is where Mylan has tried to act differently. Shareholders are [just] one [of the] stakeholder(s). Patients, doctors, employees are the others. Shareholder interest is one of the key points.
We could not have expanded and made these strategic calls without the calls that we have taken to expand Mylan from a one-country, one-market focus. When Mylan acquired Matrix and Merck’s generics business back to back, it didn’t go down well with shareholders. It took us six years to prove that whatever we are going to do, we are going to do it better than what we have thought. If you look at our returns, we have delivered more than what we had promised every year. It’s a good business if you make the right strategic calls, but more importantly execute them in the right way. You can meet the expectations of all stakeholders, and that’s what we are doing.
First Published: Jul 30, 2018, 15:02
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