Claris appears as case study at ISB
The growth of Claris Lifesciences has caught the attention of leading B-school, Hyderabad based Indian School of Business (ISB) that has done a case study on the Ahmedabad-based pharma company. From a modest turnover of about Rs 25 crore in the first year of its inception eight years ago, the company has clocked Rs 600 crores in 2007 calendar year and is now aiming to reach Rs 800 crore by December 2008.
The case study is written by Prof Rama Velamuri, a renowned professor at IESE Management Institute, Spain who is also a visiting faculty at ISB. The institute ranks 20th, according to Financial Times’ 2008 Global MBA Ranking.
Claris Lifesciences focuses on injectables and critical care, having a global footprint spread over 76 countries. Claris manufactures and markets complex, technology and IPR intensive, high end products and life saving medicines for the treatment of critical illnesses and diseases.
“We were trying to understand the evolution of Claris. How it has managed growth from owner managed to being professionally driven. The dynamic growth pattern that has unfolded is mainly due to the founder Sushil Handa’s strong relationship based leadership,” said Mayank Kumar, student of ISB who has been working on the case study.
Claris, which is the only pharma company from India to have been selected for case-study, has cleared defined roles for the family members, said Anupam Kumar another student involved in the study. Handa is now preparing the second generation to take over the business.
One of the interesting aspects that the students came across in the study is that the company has been able to cope up with attrition due to recruitments from grassroots’ levels, he added saying that Claris has tied up with various schools and institutes.
The growth of Claris has also drawn PE major Carlyle which has picked up some equity in the company in the past. Claris has 11 subsidiaries with a presence in 76 countries with over 2,000 employees.
As part of the study, the students have also touched upon the defunct Core, one of the two founders of which included Handa. “A small part of the study also touches upon Core and what went wrong with it. Claris has a different focus as compared to Core and it caters to niche market segment,” according to Mayank and Anupam.
Claris is meanwhile targeting to clock a Rs 1,000 crore turnover next year with special focus on R&D and regulated markets. The company is also looking at hitting the capital markets once the scenario improves.
“One of the observations made by the students is that we need to focus more on branding. We need to further strengthen our communication strategy. We want to further enhance our biotech capabilities and revise our focus in naphthology and oncology molecules. Currently we are intensifying our efforts in big markets, focusing and consolidating,” according to Handa.