Enabling patients and nations to combat Covid-19

Covid-19 has impacted the world in a way no other event has in this century. Even as treatment protocols and vaccines have emerged to fight the virus, nations are still struggling to save their people and economies.

In these unprecedented circumstances, the pharmaceutical sector has faced its own set of challenges. Early lockdowns in India and other nations led to major disruptions in supply chains and logistics. The restrictions on people’s movements hampered operations of plants, and in-person meetings with doctors that are a vital aspect of pharmaceutical marketing had to be stopped.  

We are meeting the challenges raised by the pandemic with confidence because of the foresight and resilience demonstrated by our teams. Our investment in digital infrastructure predates the pandemic, put in place by our leadership who saw value in online operations. We had already developed digital platforms that bridged different departments of our business and linked us to suppliers, buyers and doctors. This digital backbone has proven invaluable since the pandemic hit, with most business operations progressing unhindered after some teething problems. In the future, we intend to develop these platforms further to facilitate work from home, and extend connectivity to vendors and customers.

In the initial stages of the pandemic, we had noted two divergent trends in our businesses. While the sale of APIs in India and emerging markets was adversely affected, there were incremental sales in markets such as the US, Europe and Russia. As a result, there was no significant overall impact of the pandemic on our profitability in Q4 FY2020 or the full year FY2020.

The consistency of our company’s performance is owing to the successful execution of our strategy — leadership in chosen spaces, operational excellence and continuous improvement, and patient-centric product innovation — even during uncertain times, such as we face today.