Guest Lecture by Mr. Salil Kallianpur

The Corporate Relations Committtee, SIMSREE organized a Guest Lecture by Mr. Salil Kallianpur, Commercial Head – Classic Brands and Established Products, GlaxoSmithKline at SIMSREE on 7th January, 2014. He leads the commercialization of GSK’s off-patent (classic) products and branded generic products in four therapy areas- Respiratory, Cardiovascular, Metabolism and Virology across geography of emerging markets. The topic of interaction was “Changing Landscape of Pharmaceutical Industry”. 

Mr. Kallianpur spoke on the gamut of opportunities available for management graduates in the pharmaceutical sector. He began the session with how the pharma sector had thrived in spite of the global economic downturn. In spite of the presence of about 23000 pharmaceutical companies in India, only 30% of the 1.2 billion Indian population has access to basic medicines. The major reason for this is policy paralysis and the only solution to this is Public Private Partnerships (PPP).

Currently, India spends only 0.9% of its GDP on health care and the government has plans to increase this amount to 1.58% of the GDP in the next five years. However, the WHO recommends that 6% of the GDP should be spent on Healthcare. He explained how the pharma companies thrive despite the increase in the number of essential medicines (whose prices are regulated) from 74 to 378 by the Drug Price Control Order. The concept of Evergreen Patenting (and how ethical is it?) along with section 3D was explained in details. He stated that the top 10 companies together have 39% market share and the leading company enjoys a market share of only 5.1%. In the end there was a Q&A round and he enthusiastically answered all the queries put forth by the students. He also shared ideas about the possible entrepreneurial initiatives in the pharmaceutical sector.

The Corporate Relations Committee, along with the whole batch is thankful to Mr. Salil Kallianpur for taking out time from his busy schedule and presenting an insightful session on the pharmaceutical sector.