“Don’t sell the company, I want the legacy of my father to continue for the next 50 years,” is what Cipla doyen Y.K. Hamied told Subhanu Saxena, as the latter took charge as the company’s new global Chief Executive.

Saxena repeats the anecdote, as his response to Cipla-watchers who see the Rs 8,000-plus crore company as a potential takeover target.

The 49-year-old Saxena’s mandate is to shape the next phase of Cipla’s growth, and his blueprint includes the incubation of potential new businesses for the company.

New ventures

Cipla now has a ‘new ventures’ business under a separate head that evaluates opportunities in the over-the-counter (OTC), consumer-health, bio-similars and animal health segments, he says, indicating there is more, but still under wraps. As these ideas develop into sustainable businesses for Cipla, the parallel plan for the domestic market is to build on its strengths and improve its reach across the country, so people can get easy access to a Cipla product.

Internationally, the company’s strategy will see some tweaking, as it sharpens its focus on fewer, but strategic partnerships overseas.

The company makes products for about 800 of its partners, but will now narrow its focus on key partners, he said.

Through a combination of partnerships, acquisitions and go-solo strategies, Cipla will increase its presence in markets such as North America and Europe, even as it evaluates the road ahead in Japan, China, Brazil, Turkey and Russia.

“Steady wins the race,” he says, explaining that internationalisation will not involve acquisitions at any cost, “no risky investments” and no para IV filings or patent-infringement litigation. Research too will see stepped-up investments, as the company looks to grow its product pipeline beyond 2015 — building on its key respiratory and oncology capabilities, besides adding cardio-vascular and anti-ageing products to this basket. Saxena speaks with equal ease on medicines, Sanskrit or the Vedas (his pet passions), and often has an Urdu saying handy to explain a situation.

And though he comes from the other side of the pharmaceutical divide — having been with multinational drug-maker Novartis in other global capacities — he says there is no conflict in his mind.

‘Coming Home’

Be it local or multinational drug companies and the Government, there should be a common goal — to improve patients’ access to medicines, he says repeatedly, speaking to Business Line at Cipla’s headquarters in Central Mumbai.

On joining domestic drug-major Cipla, he says, it was like “coming home”.

“There was incredible chemistry with Hamied and family and it was like I knew them for years.”

jyothi.datta@thehindu.co.in