Expert Talk: The Future of Pharma Machinery

Johnson Mathew, CHRO IRM group

A warm welcome to all the esteemed panelists and participants on behalf of IRM group and Cadila Pharmaceuticals with a special regards to Chairman and Managing Director Dr Rajiv Modi.

Kaushik Desai, Advisor IPMMA

Covid-19 pandemic has brought out unique challenges, pharma machinery sector being the lifeline of industry for their manufacturing activities has undergone radical change in support and working for pharma industry. Particularly to ensure that minimum interruption and disruption for supply of medicines. The pandemic has brought the importance of automation and digitization to the forefront. The technology that is going to disrupt pharma manufacturing are 3D printing, continuous manufacturing, digitization and automation, an era of Pharma 4.0 is evolving.

Navdeep Rinwa, Joint Secretary, Policy Medical Devices, Schemes & Pricing, DoP, GOI(Chief Guest)

Mr. Rinwaji expressed his happiness to join the webinar and also mentioned that this is for the first time DoP from Government is participating in discussion on importance of pharma machinery sector. As per the guidelines laid on 27 July 2020, Government has introduced four new schemes: Two schemes each for bulk drugs and medical devices and bulk drug parks in India with the help of state government.And we have brought out two production linked incentive schemes on bulk drug and medical devices each whereby selected companies are eligible for financial incentives based on their sales. Under this, 5% of financial incentives would be given on sales for 5 years and companies would be selected based on a transparent criterion and 3,420Cr. has been earmarked for this scheme.

Even in case of medical devices, we havemore than 85% dependent on imports in 2018-19, hence we decided to give incentives on high technology devices.We are getting encouraging response from both bulk drug and medical device sectors.With more concrete inputs we would be able to come up with PLI schemes for pharma machinery industry also.

Mahendra Mehta, President IPMMA (Guest of honour)

All of us are waiting for covid-19 vaccines to resume back to normalcy. Indian pharma industry is known as Pharmacy of the World and rightly so, many of the pharma companies took up the challenge for supplying medicine across the globe. Our members had to risk themselves to support the industry for continuous running of the equipment to ensure timely supply of the medicines. I would like to thank to all our machine manufacturers to extend their support during lockdowns for continuous production of medicines. The pandemic will not last forever and I’m hopeful that India will come out as a winner with join efforts between the government, pharma industry, machinery manufacturers and stakeholders.

Amit Doshi –COO, Karnavati Pharma Machinery

Service is a large aspect and we have to manufacture machinery which requires minimal servicing. Now since in-person servicesare unlikely, we need to design machines which can communicate with the manufacturer and user. Refurbishment is a huge market to be tapped, and I think if the manufacturers and sellers get together and find a market for this, there’s huge potential available. I believe for futuristic approach;we have to understand the customer much deeper.There is need to make machines which runs with minimum servicing and mass production capability at lower cost.

Aasif Khan – Director Fabtech Technologies

While the machineries are getting developed, and becoming more intelligent, along with that the overall infrastructure should also become agile. As we move towards implementation of new technologies like continuous manufacturing and Pharma 4.0, many of the pharma manufacturers are going to be under increased pressure to adopt new manufacturing method within a legacy plant environment. Going ahead, all of us in India have to move towards modules which are pre-fabricated pharma facilities for agile pharma facilities.

Arshi Ayub Zaveri, CEO Trust with Trade Group & Sr. Advisor Govt of UAE

We are hopeful that in next 30 years UAE would be self-sufficient not manufacturing 10% of their need but competing also. The sales of pharmaceuticals are expected to forecasted upon to $3.8 Bn in 2021.Accelerated drug registration system, investments in R&D, Innovation and technological development has led to a rise in the number of international pharma companies and more growth is projected in near future.

Arvind Thakker, Director Stallion group of companies

Pharma packaging is now ensuring vital role for patients’ safety carrying information related to the product, ensuring tamper evident, traceability and more. From drug manufacturing perspective human error cannot be overlooked hence automation plays a key role, again ensuring meticulous GMP compliance is a must.Weneed to adopt risk-based approach for maintenance, probably digitized maintenance. Total Preventive maintenance and predictive maintenance should be robust enough to produce quality products batch after batch consistently.

Shankar Gupta, President & COO ACG Worldwide

Now industry is getting used to remote working which hints building on Industry 4.0. And Industry 4.0 is not just digitization as we see, its more about becoming agile while machines help us to make decisions and also sharing with the customers. Whether its installation commissioning, breakdown maintenance, we are gradually moving towards remote working. Going forward, IIoT will be the drivers for the industry.Through digitization we can support customers in terms of cost optimization bringing in the competitive spirit and further fueling the environed Atmanirbhar Bharat.

Anuvrat Singal, MD Glatt India Engineering Pvt Ltd.

During this pandemic there has been a paradigm shift from serial manufacturing to parallel manufacturing. With serial manufacturing we were looking at bulk production and mass penetration of the products however with parallel manufacturing customers are expecting completely different production with the aid of agile framework. Push towards training the workforce, the millennials who have more inclination towards digitization through AR, AI and more would take us closer to our common aim of Atmanirbhar Bharat.

Harshit Shah, Director Maharshi group of companies

As per 2017 PWC reports, market size of counterfeit business ranges from approximately $163-217 bnannually. This results in 1 million deaths annually. Huge investments are made into R&D for best design practices in the packaging sector. Anticounterfeit labels are widely used with various features which includes micro-text, UI inks, temperature sensitive ink, special invisible fibersand more. All these security solutions can be deployed by a pharma packaging company depending on their product, regulation and requirement. In making Atmanirbhar Bharata reality soon, automation will play a significant role and the faster we catch up and also be at par with the European standardssooner we’ll be self-reliant.

Hashadhi Wewalage, Director Exploreolgy Pvt Ltd Srilanka

Earlier we were having issue manufacturing Warfarin tablets which is used for blood clot that could result into heart attack. Now we are manufacturing Warfarin with local supplier State Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Cooperation (SPMC). We were not able to procure good quality these tablets hence we started manufacturing on our own. There is an opportunity for pharma machinerysector and SPMC has planned to manufacture 26 products.

Ravindra Pandey, Sr. VP Alembic Pharmaceuticals Ltd.

As rightly put India is the Pharmacy of the World and we have to win the confidence around the globe to supply the reliable solution. Basic pharmacy education should also change to bring this confidence.Simplification would be the key going ahead, not complex things, which a common man cannot understand. FromAtmanirbhar Bharatperspective our focus should be more than self-reliance, even supplying to other countries. With simplicity and reliability as the key factors for our solutions, we can not only suffice to meet our demands but globally too.

S. Joganathan Ravindra Pandey, General Manager, AHS Laboratory Supplies, Malaysia

Malaysian Pharma industry has key focus on Industry-Academiabridging.In Malaysia we have 263 licensed and GMP compliant manufacturers. The Malaysian Pharmaceutical industry has the capability to produce almost all dosage forms including sterile preparations, soft gel capsules and very soon high potency API drugs. We have very trade friendly policy in Malaysia, attractive trade and incentives in terms of tax cuts and reinvestments, we have dedicated manufacturing hubs, all of this are supported by highly skilled local talent through our universities.

Rishal Shah, MD Jekson Vision Pvt Ltd.

High speed, low cost, user friendliness, high efficiency, low downtime, reliable, data analytics, these are the few key points which are going to be part of the basic specification of any product. From pharma industry perspective, these pointers are much more critical. With seamless alignment of human-machine intelligence we are looking forward for smart products. Smart machines with high reliability would be the key for our self-reliance as Indian Pharma Industry.

Endrew Tanemaru, VP PT Tamaru Mitrasejati, Indonesia

Due to widespread Covid-19 in Indonesia we had multiple challenges primarily in communicating with customers. Hence now marketing online is the need of an hour to reach out to customers. During this pandemic there has been a surge in the requirements of customized machines. In Indonesia, for pharmaceutical machinery development, people are focusing more on local suppliers. Due to mobility limitations we are managing our operations locally within Indonesia.

Dinesh Patel, Sr VP Cadila Pharmaceuticals Ltd.

The common man who is buying medicine relies on the pharmaceutical company, so does the pharma company rely on the pharma equipment manufacturing companies. Reliability is based on two factors namely: Asset availability and reduction in the maintenance cost.We’ve designed some KPIsacross the facility to monitor and improve reliability. The KPI is extensive including business KPI, equipment availability, quality, process energy saving and more.Deploying advanced digital technologies like Artificial Intelligence can help us be at par with European standards and companies making us more self-reliant.

Mohan Kolhatkar, President IRMEPL – Karnavati Pharma Machinery division concluded the insightful webinar with the vote of thanks to all panelists, moderator, the organizer Johnson Mathew, CHRO IRM group, and all the participants.