Dr. V. Prasada Raju, a seasoned pharmaceutical industry veteran, is at the helm of Cohance, a company poised to revolutionize the healthcare landscape. With a distinguished career spanning over two decades, Dr. Raju has held key leadership roles at prominent pharmaceutical companies like Granules India and Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories. His academic background, coupled with his extensive industry experience, equips him to navigate the complexities of the pharmaceutical industry with finesse. As the Managing Director and CEO of Cohance, Dr. Raju is driving innovation, fostering growth, and shaping the future of healthcare.
In an exclusive conversation with NareshNunna of Neo Science Hub, Dr Raju said that Cohance-Suven is committed to building an integrated and diversified CDMO and API+ platform that collaborates with global marquee customers to deliver innovative products that enhance people’s lives. The company is focused on building scale and science, establishing robust compliance systems, developing or acquiring technological capabilities, and bringing sustainability to the core of its operations.
- Dr Prasad, with your impressive academic background and extensive experience in the pharmaceutical industry, it’s clear that these have significantly shaped your leadership style and strategic vision for Cohance Lifesciences. Could you share more about this influence?
Indeed, let me begin by expressing my gratitude for my previous organizations, Dr. Reddy’s Labs, Granules, and several teachers, who have had a profound impact on my 30+ years of professional journey.
Dr Reddy’s contribution to the pharmaceutical industry is not just limited to offering innovative products and services but also to producing so many pharmaceutical leaders who are successfully leading many pharmaceutical companies today and contributing to the Indian pharmaceutical industry’s growth story. The culture and value systems of the organization where you spent your career’s formative years shape any professional’s evolution. I am also one of theprivileged products of Dr Reddy’s.
These experiences have affirmed my beliefs in the strength of the Indian pharma industry, the vast talent pool, andour capabilities to buildforward-looking, innovativeenterprisesthat have a transformational impact on patient’s lives. Advent, a global PE firm with a vision in the life sciences space, is forward-looking and has a growth mindset for value creation, which has been the guiding forceof our existence and progress. Industry-proven leaders as operating partners act as conscious keepers by sharing their wealth of experiences, which has been helpful in building the platform.
Our journey at the Cohance platform, includingadjacent acquisitions of Suven Pharma and Sapala Organics, is also guided by the same belief.This platform has given us a unique and unprecedented opportunity to deploy learned experiences to create an impact and leave a legacy. This is the driving force behind the focus on building the organization.
From a strategic viewpoint, we have been very conscious about our focus areas in a dynamic environment. Leveraging our deep scientific expertise, we are building Cohance as a platform offering solutions across the pharma lifecycle, while being steadfastly committedas “One Team” to execution excellenceand business fundamentals of ESG, quality and compliance. Differentiation and defensibility serve as our conscious keepers with a progress mindset.
As a leader, I believe in presenting a well-defined purpose to our collective existence and be a gardener and facilitator approach practitioner.Each of our activity influence our customers and patients. We keep “Customers and People First” to maximize their growth potential and enhance the quality of their lives so that they become better versions of themselves at work and beyond.
- Cohance-Suven Platform has made significant strides under your leadership. What are the key strategic objectives for the company in the next five years, and how do you plan to achieve them?
We aim to build an integrated and diversified CDMO and API+ platform that collaborates with global marquee customers to deliver innovative products that enhance people’s lives. To achieve this, we are focusing on building scale and science, establishing robust compliance systems, developing or acquiring technological capabilities, and bringing sustainability to the core of our operations.
- Can you elaborate on Cohance–Suven platform approach to R&D, particularly how the company integrates innovation with its core operations? How significant is the role of technological advancement in your strategy?
Our combined business is primarily divided into the Innovator CDMO (Pharma and Specialty) and API+ segments. Our approach to R&D is accordingly tailored to each segment’s needs. However, a common overarching theme across segments is Innovative Science and Technology.
In the CDMO segment, we have proven expertise of three decades in handling various chemistries across 800+ projects, demonstrating innovation in route scouting with new chemistries and successful scale-ups. Our R&D partners with global innovators to develop and optimize custom solutions. We have multiple in-house technology platforms, such as ADC (Antibody Drug Conjugates) payloads, Oligonucleotides (with our latest acquisition of Sapala), and controlled substances capabilities, which help us deliver unique offerings to our customers.
In the API+ segment, our R&D approach involves developing a differentiated niche product portfolio with the best cost position and deep backward integration to have market leadership and offer lifecycle management solutions to the brand leaders and innovators.
As we continue to grow our CDMO segment, adding new technological capabilities is central to our growth strategies. We continue to explore organic and inorganic ways to develop or acquire such unique and innovative capabilities.
- What are the biggest challenges facing the global pharmaceutical industry today, and how is the Cohance-Suven platform positioned to tackle these challenges?
Given the broader geopolitical issues worldwide today, one of the major challenges is effectively managing pharmaceutical supply chain risks.
At Cohance-Suven, we have proactively worked on significantly de-risking our sourcing dependency by having most of our raw materials sourced from domestic suppliers. We have also worked on maximizing backward integration in our processes to ensure supply chain control and margin protection.
During COVID, we witnessed the importance of speed in bringing life-saving drugs to patients. With so much innovation ongoing across various therapy areas, demonstrated by the increasing number of drugs entering clinical trials, “Time-to-market” becomes a key challenge for our global biopharma customers.
AtCohance-Suven, we continuously strive to “accelerate advantage” to our customers and enable their drug development and commercialization cycle. We achieve this through our niche chemistry capabilities, offering custom solutions, a robust project management approach, and reliable delivery.
- With a diverse product portfolio, how doesCohance-Suven prioritize and manage its product development pipeline? What are the key factors that influence these decisions?
The CDMO business segment continues to invest in new technologies to stay relevant to our partners and follow the molecule from clinical to commercial. We have unique technology competencies on ADC payloads and are now focusing on adjacent and designer payloads. Oligonucleotides are another evolving technology space in which we are investing further, in line with the clinical pipeline and customer needs.
In the API+ segment, we have strategically chosen to operate in a niche market segment of low-to-mid-volume products. This has helped us narrow our product selection basket and prioritize only such products for development, wherein we can achieve high defensibility through a best-in-industry cost position.
- Regulatory approvals are crucial in the pharmaceutical sector. How does Cohance-Suven navigate the complex regulatory environments across different countries, and what measures are in place to ensure compliance and expedite the approval process?
This has proven to be one of our differentiators due to our unwavering commitment to strengthening our business fundamentals of EHS/ESG and quality–regulatory compliance. The successful completion of several regulatory audits is a key testament to this journey. We have robust in-house R&D and regulatory teams capable of handling different global regulations with the right-first-time approaches.
- Cohance-Suven serves customers across nearly 60 countries. What strategies do you employ to adapt to varied market demands and regulatory requirements in these different regions?
In the CDMO segment,we mainly work with large biopharma innovators on their product development and globalization. We support them through our strong in-house regulatory team, which has proven expertise in handling global regulatory requirements.
Overall, our geographical presence is well-diversified across mature and emerging markets. This helps us adapt to and manage market demand fluctuations within individual geographies. We are also well connected to on-ground market nuances through our various channel partners and customers, which helps us proactively manage market dynamics.
- Looking towards the future, what emerging trends or technologies do you believe will significantly impact the pharmaceutical industry? How is Cohance-Suven preparing to leverage these trends?
Digital and AI capabilities are having a transformational impact across all industries, and the same is true for pharmaceuticals. In pharma, these capabilities are utilized across the drug development cycle and value chain productivity and are extended to influence patient compliance behaviour. However, the use cases, level of implementation, and impact will vary according to the organizational digital maturity stage.
Cohance-Suven has also embarked on leveraging these digital capabilities to improve our business processes in terms of productivity, reliability, and predictability. We are fast-tracking the migration to digital systems with the implementation of SAP, LIMS, Salesforce, etc.
- Could you discuss Cohance-Suven’s strategies for environmental sustainability? How do you balance these initiatives with the company’s economic goals?
Sustainability is our ‘First’ principle. Sustainability is at the core of our business operations and is integrated and embedded with our growth strategy. We recognise its importance for creating long-term value for our stakeholders.
We have devised several policies, such as the Biodiversity Policy, EHS Policy, Energy Policy, Scope 1 to 3 emission norms and GHG Policy, Pharmaceutical in Environment Policy, Supplier Code of Conduct, Sustainable Procurement Policy, and Water Management Policy. These have enabled us to operate as leading sustainable practitioners striving to co-create value by protecting the environment and society.
Our success in sustainable operations is demonstrated through various milestones achieved in the last 3-5 years, such as a 30% reduction in water consumption per MT produced, a 5% reduction in energy consumption per MT produced, a 15% reduction in CO2 emissions per MT produced, and a 10% reduction in generated effluents per MT produced, as covered in our latest ESG report published inFY24 for Cohance. ESG report of Suven will be published in the coming quarters with a similar approach.
- Cohance-Suven has a robust CSR policy focusing on sustainable and impactful interventions. How do these initiatives contribute to Cohance-Suven’s overall brand value and corporate identity?
We are committed to beinga leading sustainable practitioner who strives to co-create value by protecting the environment and society at large. Our CSR guiding principle is “Sustainable, Replicable & Impactful Interventions through Community Involvement.”We have undertaken various initiatives in the areas of education and skill development, health and wellness, and environmental sustainability. We believe that through these societal initiatives, wewill continue to positively impact our stakeholders and build a differentiated corporate identity for Cohance-Suven.
- Throughout your career, what have you found to be the most rewarding aspect of working in the pharmaceutical industry?
More than 60 million patients across the globe are influenced by our Cohance-Suvenplatform products and services across various life-saving categories, and more than 6,000 associate families in our country havea fulfilling quality of life while serving society. At the same time, we deliver value to our investors, shareholders, and stakeholders through industry-leading financial growth.Leading such an organization is a privilege. Building a better organization for subsequent generations to cherish is the most rewarding aspect.
- Finally, based on your extensive experience, what advice would you give young professionals aspiring to leadership roles in the pharmaceutical industry?
Let me share my crucible experience. The pharmaceutical profession is not like any other.It comes from a passion, patience, and responsibility for contributing to a better and healthier world for tomorrow. It’s a knowledge-driven, well-regulated, rapidly evolving space. One must possess a candid, lifelong learning attitude with application orientation.
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