Germany-headquartered Bayer AG is committed to bringing more products into India, said Chairman Dr Marijn Dekkers, even as he underlined the need to protect intellectual property rights in the country.
Improving the availability of Bayer products in India is part of a plan for the India operations to meet its target of €1 billion by 2015, from €500 million now.
Intellectual property is a key mechanism to protect the company's rights and inventions, Dr Dekkers said, responding to a query from
The recently enacted product Patent Law is a step in the right direction, he said, adding that it adds to his confidence in the Indian market. Bayer is at present locked in litigation with local drug makers over its kidney and liver cancer drug Nexavar.
Protecting intellectual property (IP) is “key to our model”, he said, adding that the company spent between €1 billion and €2 billion on product development. “So we need exclusivity” and IP protection to have an innovative model, he added.
Expand Asia
Outlining Bayer's plans to expand its research, production and distribution base in Asia, Dr Dekkers said: “We aim to achieve a more than 60 per cent increase in our sales in Asia by 2015.” This would mean annual sales of over €11 billion by 2015 at today's exchange rates, he added.
Bayer is also beefing up its human resource, and the company's Asian workforce has increased nearly 8 per cent over the last 12 months, he said. The number of employees in Asia could increase from 23,700 in 2010 to more than 30,000 by 2015. More Asians are also being included in global clinical trials, besides looking at local solutions, he said.
A capital expenditure of about €1.8 billion has also been planned in Asia for this period. But a large part of this investment would go into China, said Mr Stephen Gerlich, Managing Director, Bayer (India).
All three sub-segments of the group's operations in India would contribute to achieving the €1 billion target, he said, with crop science accounting for 60 per cent, material science 30 per cent and healthcare 10 per cent.
Mr Joerg Rehbein, Country Head of Bayer Cropscience in India, said that they interacted with about 10 million farmers. Bullish on the activity in the domestic seed-market, he said, Bayer's Nunhems facility in Bangalore had a product basket that included non-genetically modified vegetables including tomato, cucumber, watermelon.
Commenting on the Bayer-Zydus joint venture, Mr Angel-Michaelo Evangelista, said that the equally partnered joint venture had operationalised six months ago, with equal investment in seed-capital, and three dozen products. The venture has ramped up its workforce from 400 employees to about 900 by the year end, he added.