US operations will become the largest contributor to the global sales of Ranbaxy by 2003, overtaking contribution from home operations in the process, according to Ranbaxy Laboratories chief executive and managing director D S Brar.
"We will have crossed a turnover of over $220 million in the US by then," he said while speaking at a public session on "Globalising Indian business -- The way forward" organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) here today.
Commenting on Ranbaxy's performance in the US, Brar said that the Blue R brand, used by Ranbaxy for all generic products, is available in 90 per cent of the drug stores in the country. "By the year end, we will improve our penetration from 90 per cent to 100 per cent," he said.
According to Brar, US is the largest market for pharmaceutical products in the world with a 42 per cent share of the global market. "If we want to become a global pharmaceutical company, we have to focus on the US market," he said. As per him, Ranbaxy has so far made an investment of $30 million in its US operations.
Ranbaxy has two fully owned subsidiaries in the US, Ranbaxy Pharmaceuticals Inc (RPI) and Ohm Laboratories. Together, the two companies reported a turnover of $63.1 million during 2000, up from $38.5 million in 1999. As compared with a loss of $2.1 million in 1999, the two firms collectively clocked a profit after tax of $1.3 million in 2000.
During 2000, RPI acquired all manufacturing, packaging and proprietary rights of "Proctosol" brand in the US. It also acquired the assets and infrastructure of HMS Sales & Marketing Inc to bring the marketing organisation in-house for the sale and distribution of its products in the country.
Brar also announced that Ranbaxy is looking at the option of getting into telemarketing in the overseas markets using call centres in India. As a pilot project, it will market its products to doctors in Brazil and Germany from India-based call centres. "Depending on its success, we will push it further," he added.
Commenting on the development of new products, Brar said that the global licencing & business development team of Ranbaxy has been told that it must investigate one licencing proposal every two days. "Currently, we have 118 proposals. The US subsidiary alone is working on 68 projects. Even if 10 per cent of these bear fruit, it will be a tremendous boost to our revenues," he added.
