Racing against time to meet patient needs

It isn’t enough to have goals or the resources to meet them – the entire process from ideation to implementation must be disciplined and speedily executed not only to stay ahead of competition but to also remain dynamic and efficient. In the pharmaceutical industry, speed is everything because we’re dealing with human life. This essence is captured in our motto as well – Good Health Can’t Wait.

One of our newer products helps to treat nicotine addiction. With locked in research information, our teams got to work to devise strategy, manufacturing flow, equipment chain and batch sizes. Naturally, timelines were key, but there was the matter of an escalating pandemic, lockdowns and risk to life for our employees. Experts from various cities could not travel to the manufacturing site to complete the knowledge transfer process. It became critical to leverage virtual technology to get this done.

It worked. With consistent communication, the teams gained critical product knowledge and insight and successfully produced two confirmatory batches without having R&D experts physically present. A task that would have stretched across months was speedily executed within one-and-a-half months. Even though the deadline was September, the job was done by August.

Similarly, Dr. Reddy’s launched the generic obeticholic acid drug in India last year, despite the pandemic and all its challenges. Obeticholic acid is mainly used to manage a hepatobiliary disorder; though its occurrence is rare with a global prevalence of 6.7 to 402 cases per million, its treatment is an unmet need and our teams got on it right away.

Product development was a highly integrated process. In fact, our teams were able to come up with a novel API process, whose patent is under process. While the back-end team met an ambitious timeline of just two months from M&M approval to delivery, the front-end team was able to reach out to doctors digitally across India in two weeks. Since the molecule is first in class and the physician community is not fully aware of it, there were unprecedented efforts towards therapy shaping. The medico-marketing team digitally reached out to over 120 national-level key opinion leaders and more than 275 doctors in just five days. Despite the nationwide lockdown, multiple units worked to ensure every activity, including stock delivery, was completed on time, and the product was the first to hit the shelves.

Speed is key to getting things done. It’s how we stay ahead in the game.

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