Indian drug discovery industry is upgrading itself to the global standards and this created a situation to improve our standards on many fronts. When India is upgrading itself, there is an immediate need to fine tune HR and other resources. Finishing schools on the lines of IT industry are creating more awareness towards the IPR environment, which is the need of the hour. These are some of the conclusions arrived at TWO sessions on “Getting India onto the Global Platform – A People Perspective” designed by National HR Forum for life-sciences on the final day of Bangalore Bio 2009, India's premier Biotechnology event organized by the Department of Information Technology, Biotechnology and Science & Technology, Government of Karnataka, Vision Group on Biotechnology and MM Activ Sci-Tech Communications Co.,
Panelists in the two sessions felt: “The development and progress in drug discovery in India is happening because of global pressure, not because we have strategically planned it. As the needs of bio-sciences industry are complex, the need for better adaptation strategies, is required, even for an expert scientist in order to succeed.”
Mr. Manni Kantipudi, President, GVK Biosciences, Chaired the panel discussion session, said, “Human resource development and training happening in India at multiple levels. The needs of the industry change constantly as the market environment changes. So in order to compete the western CROs, Indian CROs should evolve a continuous reorientation programme for their scientist HR.”
Dr. J B Gupta, Senior Vice President – Collaborative Research, GVK Biosciences, said, “ India is already on the global platform, but now the need is to move to the next level, to add more value to the global pharma industry. Indian CRO industry is just 9 years old but has been flourishing. US$seven hundred billion global pharma industry spending about US$ one hundred billion on research, but the final products reaching the markets has been coming down. The dependency on India and China for R&D is increasing. Indian CROs should move and catch up the capabilities of problem solving ability of Western CROs. We are still facing shortage of highly motivated scientists with global outlook.”
Dr. Gopal Vaidyanathan, General Manager – application, Waters India, said, “ Acquisition, training and engagement of scientists for advanced technologies, which are not just sophisticated instruments or processes, but a combination of both, is the need of the hour . Current trend shows there is a reduction in manpower but spending on them has gone up. This is an indication of the need for constant training. The real challenge is productivity, which is not increasing although R&D spending has been surging. Skill set mapping of the person is essential before starting the hiring process. Alignment of personal goals with organisational goals is more important for the organisations to be more successful.”
Mr. Ravi C Dasgupta, Group Vice President – HR, Biocon Ltd, “ Attracting and retaining international talent starts from defining talent. External branding and internal branding are two most important ways to attract talent. If the company cannot provide similar challenging and fulfilling environment, talent moved in from international companies will get disillusioned.”
Dr. Anil Mavila, President, ILS Bioservices, “I am an example for showing how a rural kid can grow in the highly technological world. A finishing school like ours can polish the innate talents of the techie.”
Dr. Ferzaan Engineer, CRO, Quintiles Research (India) Pvt Ltd, said, “Retaining and engaging motivated workforce is crucial today in the biotech industry than ever before. People management becomes a key component in the backdrop of cost and talent arbitrage opportunities. Furthermore, scaling and maintaining employee intimacy became important in this industry.”
Mr. Suresh Ramu, Vice President – Data Management, Quintiles (India), said, “ Talent retaining and engagement in clinical research services is different from other industries. In the talent life-cycle, engaging the right person successfully and retaining is a tougher job than hiring the right talent. Though qualifications and experience matter, flexibility to learn on a continuous basis is what a company sees in the employee. People with lot of patience are needed for clinical research work. As clinical research is a global industry though it is working out of India, there is a need to balance so many things like work vs home, today vs tomorrow etc...”
Dr. K S Rao, Associate Vice President – Corporate Development, Advinus Therapeutics Ltd, said, “ So many people and confidentiality issues crop up in terms of IPRs. Confidentiality culture should work from top through down. There is a need to create awareness on IPRs for every employee, as India is also a signatory to WTO. Many scientists are under the illusion that they can do anything in their labs and hence project monitoring is needed in order to compete with rest of the world in efficiency and speed.”
He added, “Strength of the Indian pharma is in generics. Though it is changing now towards original drugs, the pace is too slow. Business processes should evolve continuously to climb up in the ladder of IPs. Degrees are not sufficient to expect corporate culture in new employees. For enterprises to survive they should put in processes that address all these issues.”
Dr. Sandhya Ravi, Consultant Surgeon, Director Operations, Lotus Clinical Research Academy, said, “Talent creation in emerging life sciences sector is really a tough task. This is evident by the fact that only 20% of the required number of skilled doctors for clinical research are there in India now. At the same time many students coming out of colleges are not employable.”
