The new era of collaborations – An interview of Mr. Sameer Kolhe
Healthcare Radius spoke to Sameer Kolhe, Founder of Maypharm Life Sciences about Maypharm’s new market entries, and collaborations.
Maypharm Life Sciences is a new age healthcare company based in India and Brazil, catering to the Latin American Markets. Headquartered in Mumbai, India they have a strong network of Research and Technology driven research and manufacturing companies across Europe, the US and South East Asia regions via whom they partner to bring advanced technologies and products at affordable prices.
Healthcare Radius spoke to Sameer Kolhe, Founder of Maypharm Life Sciences about Maypharm’s new market entries, and collaborations. Sameer is spearheading the business functions at Maypharm and shaping the business development, project management, finance and consulting functions.
Could you please begin by giving our readers an introduction to Maypharm Lifesciences?
First of all, thank you for inviting me to this conversation. It is indeed a pleasure to connect and share my thoughts from such a powerful platform.
Talking about Maypharm, we are driven by the idea of offering value-added and affordable healthcare products to emerging markets in the world. Though the idea is simple and may sound routine, our approach to the basic pillars of the business – the Market, the Model, and the Portfolio, is unique.
- Market – typically we focus on territories with high potential yet having significant entry barriers for foreign players to enter.
- Model – we operate on a business model where we negate the concept of the ‘competition’ itself as we bring in business opportunities to players at every level in the value chain. So, rather than competing, we collaborate to become partners in growth.
- Portfolio – Therapeutic areas requiring better compliance or easy administration, products extremely specific to these markets (making it less available in general), herbal and nutraceuticals backed by clinical trials. While selecting products we take care of affordability and profitability to consumers.
Being virtual in terms of manufacturing and R&D, we make use of the best resources available in India, Europe and other parts of the world and are creating an enviable portfolio of products. With a fully owned subsidiary company in Brazil, we are focused on Latin America as our primary market currently. We have various products in different stages of registrations in Brazil and Mexico and are poised to begin commercial operations in both markets in the 2nd quarter of this financial year.
The pandemic was unprecedented. What were the steps taken by Maypharm to counter the effects of the pandemic – business-wise and innovation-wise?
Undoubtedly, the pandemic did create a perplexing situation and Just like every other company we have been affected by this unprecedented challenge. Fortunately, the team has stepped up and turned it into an opportunity for us on the business front.
We partially aligned ourselves to the changing landscape quickly. Assessing the scenario, we approached the Government agencies and health authorities for fast-track registrations for some of the life-saving medicines. We have been fortunate that our requests were considered positively, and we are doing everything possible to serving the patients in these markets and in turn intangibly getting benefitted from the fast-track processes for some of our products.
Also, the pandemic has highlighted the importance of general wellbeing amongst people globally. We are working on a range of products which is focused on healthy living and preventive care. We plan to roll out these products in multiple countries starting from India as well.
Give us an insight into the Maypharm’s presence and operation in the whole Latin American region. Do you have plans to expand it to further areas in the American continent?
Brazil remains to be our primary market and with a local office in Sao Paulo and a local regulatory team, we intend to continue focusing on introducing multiple products and partnerships in Brazil. We plan to launch 4 to 5 products in this financial year and increase the tally of our product pipeline to 40 by end of the year, which is a significant investment. But, to answer your question, we are in an investment phase currently. We have similar targets for Mexico too and should achieve them by the next financial year. At this point, we have a pipeline of almost 15 products in Mexico at various stages of registration.
We are in the early stages of making an entry in key markets of Latin America like Costa Rica, Colombia, and a few Central American countries, expecting to have significant traction in all these countries by end of the year.
Interestingly, we will launch technology-driven products in the health and wellness segment in India this quarter. The pandemic has made us look towards India as a significant market opportunity, as mentioned, in the health and wellness segment and we are working on multiple channels to distribute our products here.
Healthcare organisations and allied businesses across the world are engaging in collaborative ventures—including alliances, joint ventures, and mergers and acquisitions—at an increasing rate. Maypharm too has collaborated with partner companies for developing niche technologies. Could you give us a brief about these ventures?
Partnerships are core to our ‘Model’ as explained earlier. On the product side, we are focused on innovation and new drug delivery systems which will have a positive impact on healthcare and patient compliance. The first round of funding that we went through has helped us generate enough resources to focus on such developments and investing in niche projects with CDMOs in India. As an example, we are investing in a technology of a herbal patch known for thousands of years to us but going via the route of the clinical trial to registering this as a medicinal product for a specific indication – value creation.
On the market side, we have collaborated with the best in each of the market segments like the hospital segments, retail chains focused on creating brands, etc. We are sure that these partnerships will turn into ventures sooner than later.
What does the future look like for Maypharm? What are your plans?
The short to medium-term plan is to establish ourselves as a speciality pharmaceutical company in Brazil and Mexico, which will give us a core from where we can expand our base. At the same time, we would continue the efforts to introduce innovation-based products which will help the consumer and customer, slowly but surely positioning ourselves as a player with innovative products and solutions.
Medium to long term, we would like to have our portfolio of products commercialised in at least 10 to 12 countries and known as an established multinational healthcare company. To achieve this, we will be banking on building a motivated team that will share a common vision and passion. Also, we are consciously building a process-driven organisation ready to absorb challenges faced by a growth-oriented setup.
Make in India initiative is a big push from the Government of India for pharma and Healthcare. How has it benefited Maypharm’s endeavours?
It is a major push for companies like ours relying on the manufacturing prowess of India and while going into new territories. The improved brand image of the Indian Pharmaceutical industry during the pandemic is helping positively. At the same time, the reduced dependency on Chinese imports has provided flexibility. We believe that this situation is a perfect platform for innovation and advancement in efficiency.
Your opinion on this year’s budget w.r.t healthcare sector.
I feel the pandemic was a trigger for the Government of India and a better allocation of the budget was much anticipated post the virus outbreak. The budget did reflect the government’s emphasis and focus on building a stronger and resilient healthcare system – primary, secondary as well as tertiary. A whopping 137% rise in budget compared to last year which is allocated for healthcare particularly towards investing in Research and Development, healthcare infrastructure, immunisation, nutrition programs and preventive and curative healthcare is much welcomed by all of us from the Industry. The government has recognised the importance of investing in this sector and the vision of quality and affordable health coverage of all is a praiseworthy move. I feel it is time we utilise this opportunity to expedite lifesaving and essential drugs and invest in innovative solutions to be future-ready to combat any known as well as unascertained situations related to public health.
https://www.healthcareradius.in/business/28813-the-new-era-of-collaborations