"Rise in regulatory inspections is good for analytical equipment industry"

In India, through its eight distribution centres, six manufacturing facilities, four application labs and two R&D centres, Thermo Fisher Scientific offers a host of products and services across the industrial, scientific and healthcare segments. Responsible for driving the company’s growth in the country, Amit Chopra, managing director, Thermo Fisher Scientific India, believes that India’s industrial growth and need for high quality standards are creating demand for the company’s more advanced technologies.

In conversation with Rakesh Rao, Amit Chopra analyses the changing dynamics in the analytical equipment market and growth opportunities for his company. 

Who are your main customers in India?

In India, we are headquartered in Mumbai with 16 additional offices across the country and more than 1700 employees. The company registered revenues of well over $200 million during last year. Our industry leading technologies and services are used by customers across pharma/bioprocessing, industrial, academic research and healthcare segments and we will continue to focus on helping our customers accelerate innovation, enhance productivity and increase compliance capabilities.

What is the current status of analytical equipment market in India? 

The Indian market has been growing at a steady pace, with some of our end user industries such as healthcare, pharma and bioprocessing growing faster than others. The country has also been attracting increasing foreign direct investment (FDI), has a large educated workforce, and a growing presence within industries that rely on analytical instruments, particularly, pharmaceutical and healthcare. 

India has a small, but growing domestic industry in the production of basic analytical instruments and equipment. Foreign investment not only affects the demand for instruments, but also the supply, as most of the major multinational players in the instrument industry have established subsidiaries in the country. The Indian analytical market is expected to be over $ 2 billion and growing at a CAGR of 6-8 percent for the period 2013-18. 

Are stringent regulations pertaining to product safety & quality, environment, exports, etc. leading to increase in demand for analytical equipment in India?

Increased regulatory inspections, stringent manufacturing and quality requirements have positively impacted the growth of the analytical equipment industry in India. There has been increasing focus of Food and Drug Administration (FDA or US FDA) and Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) authorities in evaluating Indian pharmaceutical manufacturers and similarly with Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) working to improve food safety standards within the country. This has resulted in a steady growth for the Indian analytical industry as customers are looking for advanced technologies and globally accepted products and processes to enhance their regulatory compliance. 

What are the emerging trends in analytical & lab equipment market - globally and in India - with regards to new applications and technology/innovations?

The growing need for higher lab productivity has led to the development of new technologies such as ultra high pressure liquid chromatography (UHPLC), high sensitivity mass spectrometers and many more. The complexity and sophistication of manufacturing and quality processes, and more stringent regulatory standards are shaping the shift towards rapid adoption of new technologies that can deliver faster results without compromising quality. 

Customers are increasingly converging to workflow-based solutions instead of standalone technologies. There is also an increased awareness and requirement of high quality accessories, consumables, reagents and software which enhances compliance and improves analytical rigour of the technologies. Our end users are increasingly adopting our cloud based platform, Thermo Fisher Cloud, to enhance collaboration, improve data analytics and share best practices. 

In last few years many global companies have invested heavily in research activities (like setting up R&D and innovation centres) in India. What does this means to companies like Thermo Fisher Scientific?

India has always attracted pharma, food and global industrial players as a place to establish their R&D functions. The industry-academia collaboration, availability of skilled workforce and lower operational costs has also been driving factors for these multinational companies. Such industrial growth is creating demand for more advanced technologies that are available from companies like Thermo Fisher Scientific. We have invested in two R&D sites in India - an engineering R&D centre in Hyderabad and a life sciences R&D centre in Bengaluru.

While in past it took several years for analytical manufacturers to launch new products and develop acceptability in the field, today this cycle is very short. Analytical vendors need to constantly innovate and bring new and upgraded technologies. Thermo Fisher globally spends more than $700 million in R&D which is the highest in this industry. Our leading products have received several awards and recognition from the scientific community.

Increasingly, users of analytical instruments are demanding integrated equipment. How is Thermo Fisher approaching this issue? 

Customers are replicating the trends of developed countries and shifting focus from manpower-intensive processes to automation and integration. Customers looking to improve processes or increase efficiency rely on our comprehensive portfolio of robotics, automated incubators, microplate instrumentation, liquid handling and workflow software to provide accurate, reliable results. 

Whether automating a single step or an entire workflow, our solutions will reduce the cost of ownership and deliver a faster return on investment. For example, customers can reduce the time spent on repetitive tasks by using automated liquid handling and dispensing instruments. Our flexible lab information management systems (LIMS) and scientific data management systems (SDMS) enable customers to manage data, resources and workflows, helping them comply with regulatory and good manufacturing practices (GMP)/ good laboratory practices (GLP) requirements. Specific application functionality dramatically reduces implementation, training, validation and maintenance costs to ensure seamless integration of data. 

Are you focusing on areas like cloud computing, Internet of Things, etc? 

Science is advancing at a rapid pace. The way our customers work to collect, manage, analyse, share, and protect their data is demanding more efficient and secure solutions. As the world leader in serving science, Thermo Fisher Scientific is helping them make that happen by providing solutions to upgrade their lab with powerful, scalable and secure computing capabilities. 

Thermo Fisher Cloud is a powerful computing platform that connects scientists, instruments, and software in a collaborative, multi-disciplinary environment, anywhere and anytime. This platform allows researchers to securely access, learn, analyse, share, collaborate, and store data and discoveries across their research teams and collaborators, through geographies from any internet enabled device. In addition, Thermo Fisher recently acquired Core Informatics, a provider of leading cloud-based scientific data platforms, to strengthen its offering in this field. The scientific community is rapidly adopting cloud-based laboratory and scientific data management capabilities. We have seen increasing trend in number of registrations and users benefitting from Thermo Fisher Cloud.

Pharma/biopharma has been the major users of analytical equipment. Are you seeing new sectors offering similar opportunities for the industry?

As you rightly said, pharma/bioPharma customers continue to be the major users of analytical equipment. However, we are observing an increasing adoption of analytical technologies and instruments in other segments such as food & environmental testing and life science research. Complex sample matrices, evolving regulatory guidelines and the need for better lab productivity are all driving faster adoption. 

Any plans to expand your manufacturing footprint in India?

Currently, Thermo Fisher Scientific has six manufacturing facilities in India that produce lab chemicals, liquid handling instruments, analytical instruments, air quality monitoring equipment and antibodies. With the growing need for application centric and customised solutions we will continue to explore opportunities to add to our locally manufactured portfolio.