Copyright © HT Digital Streams Limit all rights reserved. Amitabh Dube, president and managing director, Novartis India (illustration by Priya Kuriyan) Summary Novartis India President and Managing Director on his belief that AI can lead to faster diagnoses, why Big Pharma does not deserve his reputation, and his love for Vietnam is a coincidence, says Amitabh Dube, Country President and Cover. “It was only later that we realized that we missed Jaya and Aishwarya in the family,” he adds, smiles, with reference to the famous family in films. At the rooms, on the 25th floor of the Taj Land’s End in Mumbai, Dube sits with his back to the large glass windows looking at the sea. The once ill -considered sea views, which are now reduced by the building blocks of an upcoming addition to the bridge over the sea, are still spectacular, although such a view, ironic enough, is rare in a city on the coast. “We are a family of four ‘Mads’,” he says, referring to Woman Anupama and Daughter Avantika, who is on their way to Singapore for an MBA, and how they all have the same initials (with honors). The 55-year-old man, with a dark jacket and round glasses, spent a lifetime in the volatile, complex world of the pharmaceutical industry. India is an important producer of generic medicine, vaccines and affordable medicines, and works in a strong regulatory framework that tries to balance cost-effectiveness with quality. It is the world’s third largest pharmaceutical industry by volume, which accounts for 20% of the global supply of generic medicine, according to data from the government’s department of pharmaceutical products. Novartis, a global healthcare leader, who has retained a presence in India since 1947, runs Novartis India Ltd, a publicly listed arm with a market cap of more than £ 19.2 billion (FY25), along with Novartis Healthcare Pvt Ltd. Novartis has hubs in Hyderabad and Mumbai for clinical development, research, regulatory affairs and safety. The World Wide Center in Hyderabad – one of the largest in the country – supports it, manufacturing and analysis worldwide. “I am optimistic that the next five years will be different from an access to and landscaping perspective,” says Dube. ‘There is more receptivity to hearing an idea, and there is also strong execution. Over a period of time, we will have more coverage, a balance for innovative industry to thrive and a strong presence of the generic. ” “I’m not against the generic industry,” he explains when asked about patent laws, lawsuits and debates about generic medicine. “What I believe is that we should have high quality generic with innovators. Therefore, patent life comes in, because patent life is time when investing in innovators is rewarded and helps them to invest further. ‘ Dube was raised in Varanasi, where his father was a professor of mechanical engineering at Banaras Hindu University (BHU). The three of them – including an older sister and younger brother – rose in this academic environment, with a few years he spent in Birmingham, the United Kingdom, where the senior Dube went for a PhD. From a young age, Dube wanted to be a doctor, but not qualified for medicine or engineering. “If you do not qualify for both, you are a little lost and you wonder what the next is for you,” he says of the 1980s, when academic choices were less. His father was eager that he did not run out, which is why he did a bachelor’s degree in science and a master’s degree in Biochemistry, both from BHU. He considered going to the US for a PhD, but did not get a scholarship, and the doctorate was postponed. A job at Swiss multinational healthcare business Hoffman-La Roche as a sales representative in Lucknow got him a foot in the pharmaceutical industry, with the aim of working for a short time before returning to academics. “But once you start working,” Dube says, “you start enjoying it, I don’t think there’s a return point after that.” He also liked the work as the next best thing to practice medicine, and three decades later, the idea of a PhD remains a foggy memory. His task was to meet oncologists, who did Dube from 1994 for a year and a half in Lucknow. He was transferred to Delhi when Nicholas Pyramal India Ltd Roche India’s domestic formulations and nutritional enterprise acquired. Delhi’s move had the extra responsibility to deal with institutional and government companies, giving him the opportunity to work with policymakers. At the end of the 1990s, when Hoffman-La Roche returned to India with a merger with Nicholas Piramal, Dube became the new company’s “fourth employee”. His role was to work with government stakeholders to deal with public matters, start Roche’s business by a distribution model in Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh and overseeing scientific activities. “I swam in areas where I was uncomfortable, to do the government’s stakeholders, lobbying … but the more you learn to swim in deep waters, the better a swimmer you are,” he says. He performed several roles at Roche – in operations, distribution, corporate matters – and worked in Lucknow, Delhi and Mumbai before moving to Novartis India as head of business units in November 2010. His incentive to make the move was to create “something strong in oncology” after seeing the effectiveness of Roche’s Cancer Drug Interferon and Novartis’ Gleevec. While Novartis was not as well known as Roche in the oncology sector, it was what Dube’s move encouraged, a patient-centric approach, a strong pipeline and the mentorship of the Asia-Pacific, Francis Bouchard. That’s why he moved from “Roche, with an approximately $ 60 million invested in oncology, to Novartis, with $ 5 million; from a team of 200 people working in oncology to 30 people.” “I’m not dressed by the size of the business,” he says. “I am more attracted to what I can create over a period to transform, influence lives.” Over the seven -year period, from No.7, Novartis became one of the largest businesses in Oncology in India, says Dube. When the country was about to go for oncology and head of marketing for Asia, Dube, based for a few months in Singapore, had the opportunity to travel to Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, Vietnam and other parts of the region. In the middle of the lock in April 2020, he was presented a move to Vietnam as a country head for oncology. “The first months, while India already peaked in July-August, Vietnam had no masks (because they closed their borders fairly early), a normal life outside,” he says, in admiration of one of his favorite countries. In the two years he spent there, Dube grew to love the country, its people, who strengthened its cultural adaptability and became chairman of the operational association in Vietnam before a return to India when the country president came to account. I ask him about the negative image of Big Pharma in Public Perception as a profit drive industry, an image also driven by the popular culture of Hollywood films like Sweet Girl (2021), which I accidentally and unfortunately the night before. Some of the criticism of Big Pharma has also played over the past five years, caused by the pandemic, the vaccine and the global human tragedy. Dube gives the example of Gleevec, which he says extend the life of chronic myeloid leukemia patients by 8-10 years. “Today, people live with chronic myeloid leukemia for 30 years. Last year we launched a third generation, which is a stamp bread, where 50% of patients after four years of treatment will never require further treatment.” This, he says, is only possible because they can constantly innovate. “If we don’t have it, we will never be able to fight the illnesses. There will always be a struggle between access and innovation, “he says, calling the Covid vaccine,” because innovation is not going to happen so easily and it is expensive to innovate. ” “If you look at science, they could only decode 5-10% of the diseases; there is even more to be decoded,” says Dube, also the president of the Organization of Pharmaceutical Producers of India (OPPI). His years he spent in Oncology give him a perspective why we couldn’t heal cancer. It is a disease that involves multiple ways, he explains, and adds that the immune system and the human body are exceptionally complicated. “You find one way to stop a way, which multiplies the cancer cells, the cancer cells are smart enough to find another way to grow. Thus, a cancer treatment is required multiple ways, multiple treatments. ” Therefore, there is so much importance and emphasis on health examinations, as early diagnosis significantly improves the outcomes for cancer treatment. “But it is such a complicated disease that it will still take time and a large amount of research to get potential better outcomes and cure cancer,” Dube adds. Novartis has about 12,000 collaborators working in drug development, nearly 2,500 from India. Thus, all the clinical trials, protocols, evaluations, preparations, every pipeline molecule that comes out, a touch point in Hyderabad, in the Indian operations. There are about a hundred active clinical trials for new medicines run in India, with 2500 plus patients enrolled. Dube is an avid supporter of artificial intelligence – broadly digital interventions – because over time he believes it will lead to faster diagnosis. “When I started as a representative, I went to a doctor earlier with a large part of the literature and gave him printouts. Today, my representative goes with an iPad and he has all communication available. Its effectiveness is much more there … Ai is going to help us research fast research, innovation, diagnosis, with a better result for patients. The coming years. ‘Arun Janardhan is a journalist in Mumbai who covers sports, business leaders and lifestyle. He posts @iarunj. Catch all the business news, market news, news reports and latest news updates on Live Mint. Download the Mint News app to get daily market updates. More Topics #Pharmaceutical Industry #Artificial Intelligence #Features Read Next Story
Amitabh Dube of Novartis India on his journey from Med Rep to Big Pharma Man
