Policy support important as India largely an out-of-pocket market: Panchal

AstraZeneca Pharma India Managing Director and Country President, Sanjeev Panchal, talks to Shine Jacob about the company's future plans in an interview

British drug major AstraZeneca is working on several clinical trials and several cancer-related projects in India. The company is trying to bring in technology to speed up the introduction of its global products.

AstraZeneca Pharma India Managing Director and Country President Sanjeev Panchal talks to Shine Jacob about the company’s future plans in a face-to-face interview. Edited excerpts.

With your global plans to reach $80 billion in revenue by 2030, what will be the Indian market’s contribution to that?

We achieved around $45 billion in sales last year globally, and almost $10 billion was invested in research and development.

Our mission is to bring to India the new assets launched globally as quickly as possible. That would define how much we can contribute to this global ambition. For example, in 2023, we announced we would bring 15 new launches or a combination of new assets to India by 2025. We have received approval to launch nine of those 15. We are bringing these assets to the country, and that will contribute to global ambitions.

Over the past 45 years, we have strengthened our footprint, including the Global Innovation and Technology Centre (GITC), which helps bring medicines faster and supports over 100 countries. We see this market as India for India, and India for the world through such centres. We want to be pioneers in science.

What is your strategy regarding the launch of early diagnosis products for cancer?

Our long-term vision is to eliminate lung cancer as a cause of death. When cancer is detected at a late stage, we have innovative medicines to address that.

We also need to ensure that cancer is diagnosed at an early stage. For that, we are bringing in technology. For example, we have partnered the Karnataka and Goa governments to deploy artificial intelligence-based lung cancer-screening technology developed by Qure.ai. This technology screens a patient for 29 lung diseases using a single chest X-ray. We have replicated the same model in Goa and are expanding to other states. We were implementing this in the retail market, and now the tieup is with state governments too.

What is the clinical-trial scenario in India?

Since we have many innovative medicines, the number of clinical trials is increasing. We now have clinical trials in oncology and for new indications. We have new assets in respiratory, cardiovascular, and metabolism and are conducting over 50 clinical trials now, meaning these involve either an asset or an indication.

You have the best innovative products globally. In terms of introducing them to the Indian market, has the process become smoother?

Our strategy is to bring more clinical trials to India to expedite the process of having innovative products. Recently, the government introduced rules that allow companies to obtain faster regulatory clearance to sell their products in India if approved by regulators in major countries (the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Australia, Canada, and the European Union). Such policies are benefiting every company.

Policy support is very important because India is largely an out-of-pocket market. Policies are implemented at two levels — central and state. At central level, we are seeing amendments to patient laws and several other changes. We are also seeing policy changes in cancer treatment, which are benefiting patients through reduction in goods and services tax.

We foresee favourable policies, but we need even more support at state level, as much of health care expenditure occurs there.

During the last quarter, your revenue went up by 31 per cent. What are your plans to improve profitability?

Last quarter our revenue increased, and our profit before tax (excluding exceptional items) was also strong. We saw a 29 per cent increase for the full financial year 2023-24, and we continue to see a positive trend in the last quarter as well.

To improve profits, we are focusing on bringing innovative medicines faster and improving access to our medicines. Growth and profits are the outcomes of that.

Do you have plans to enter the vaccine business?

We will remain focused on the same therapeutic areas: Cancer, biopharmaceuticals, and rare diseases. We will continue to strengthen our presence in these global therapy areas.

While we were not a vaccine company, during the pandemic, we brought the vaccine to the world.