Summary:
“A lot of people have ideas, but there are very few who decide to do something about them now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. But today. The true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer.”- Nolan Bushnell.
It has been an overwhelming journey for Dr. Janak Sheth, Managing Director of Century Pharmaceuticals that goes with the perfect saying of Nolan Bushnell relishing the entrepreneurs’ ideology and his strong will-power to step up and follow his dreams. Today, Mr. Sheth is known as a respected entrepreneur in the pharma sector.
The first-generation entrepreneur obtained his Chemical Engineering degree from IIT Delhi; he started his career with Sarabhai Chemicals and in a short time was posted on an international assignment to set up a new pharmaceutical plant in Indonesia. Starting with project planning to design of the equipment to be purchased, purchasing the equipment, installing them and later running the production was an all-round experience with the project.
For less than a half a decade, Dr. Sheth marched towards his first project by establishing a company of his own. With a limited finance base and government support that he earned from subsidies was nothing short of a “BRAVE HEART” to foray into a large business gradually.
The Story of Success:
Century Pharmaceuticals Ltd was started in 1980 in the backward district of Panchmahals. With no business experience and limited finance in the family, there were several challenges. However, with a zeal to overcome challenges, moving step by step, Dr. Sheth started producing and selling small quantities of products with a sharp eye on quality. This helped him to develop two key customers and slowly expanded the business to other companies in time. Later, he went on adding new products and today, have 40 products under manufacturing and exporting to more than 60 countries around the world.
Reminiscing upon their first huge success, Dr. Janak Sheth elaborates, “When we started the company, we had very limited means. We were struggling to get new customers and develop markets. Once we got a chance to buy some large quantity of raw material at a good price.” We seized the opportunity and placed the order with the supplier. Since, it was a large quantity valued at Rs. 12 lakhs, they insisted for an LC as payment. We did not have any LC limits with our Bank. Our funding limits itself were a meager Rs. 50,000. We approached the bank for opening the LC as this single transaction would help us generate the business, we needed to kick off our sales. They were surprised that we came with such a proposal to open an LC for Rs 12 lakhs when we had funding limits of only Rs 50,000. I convinced them to open the LC and they asked me to bring a margin of 25%. We did not have this kind of funds. We convinced them that this order would change our future and they agreed to open the LC without any margin with several other conditions. We complied with all their conditions and paved the way for a good growth of our company since that day.”
Starting from a very modest beginning and being able to grow rapidly over the years, a want to continue to add new products to the portfolio there is a certain passion to give back to society in the form of development of new products which cater to the unmet needs of the society. Century Pharmaceuticals have since the last 10 years started a research division and have undertaken novel molecule research for the treatment and cure for Asthma, Stem cell therapy and also personalized treatment for Cancer patients without any side effects.
Defining the new age Offerings; R&D and Sustainability strategies:
Biotechnology is a new area and high value products can be prepared cost effectively in India. The company has encouraged many Biotechnology graduates and postgraduates.
“I believe that with hard work and dedication, we can achieve any goal as long as we do not lose sight of our goal. We Indians are good innovators and hence we see a lot of startups in India.
With the economy providing increased funding options to these startups, we hope that we can create many unicorns. Our young people have great ideas and most of these ideas are worth to be pursued.”
-Dr. Janak Sheth, Managing Director, Century Pharmaceuticals
Adding to it, he comments, “Today, there is a dire need for Vaccines and we have in India one of the largest manufacturers in the world. Budding entrepreneurs can innovate and set up a modern plant which reduces human intervention and make better quality products.”
Several of the products made in Century Pharmaceuticals are very heavily competed in the market. Some of them are very strong products from China. The strategy is to provide customers with products which meet their quality requirements in full. By studying what the customer really needs, they are able to tailor make the product to suit the customer requirements. Century Pharmaceuticals helps the customers to make better efficacy products and this gives the customers an edge in the market to fight their challenges. While India is known as the “Pharmacy of the world”, there is still a huge opportunity in pharmaceutical manufacturing. As a part of the pay back to society, they have invested heavily on research of novel products which work on targeted killing of disease cells whereby there is no side effects. Started a decade ago with a recombinant protein for treatment and possible cure for Asthma and Allergies. They have been successful in the research on stem cell therapy for lifestyle diseases.
“Currently we have started research of a personalized treatment of Cancer cells which is using a targeted therapy treatment without any side effects. At present we have undertaken invivo proof of concept in mice.” Mentions Dr. Janak Sheth.
Sustainability has been always a top priority. Century Pharmaceuticals are a green company and believe in carbon reduction. They have a 50 MW solar plant on the roof top and also have solar street lights and are a zero-discharge company since inception. All the effluent water is treated cost effectively through biological treatment and later through RO for reuse of the treated water. In fact, they use sewage water in the biological treatment and try to make an integrated effluent treatment system! The effluent water treatment system uses minimum energy and yet gets good drinking water quality treated water which is reused by the company itself. The company is also engaged in the development of Peptide drugs with Hormonal Peptide analogues. They are currently developing the following products: – Degarelix Acetate , Cetrorelix Acetate, Triptorelin Acetate, Octreotide Acetate, Leuprolide Acetate, Lanreotide Acetate , Semaglutide , Liraglutide etc.
A Deep Dive into the Industry Know-How:
Indian Pharma Industry has come of age. Almost all products are manufactured in India. Owing to our huge population the requirements are also varied and large. This gives us a competitive edge to fight competitors in other markets. India has the largest number of USFDA approved plants outside USA. At the same time, we have hundreds of WHO and EU approved facilities. Currently, India is exporting 20% of the world’s requirements and soon we will cross 25% as new plants which are coming up will be operational.
The managements are well trained to work in pharmaceutical industry whether for manufacture of raw materials (API) or finished products. As a result, Indian pharmacists and engineers are manning several plants around the world. With the current Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme of the government, several new plants are coming up to fill the gap of demand and supply especially for products currently imported. This will give domestic manufacturers a level playing field to fight overseas competition.
Galloring Experiences & Opportunities:
Century Pharmaceuticals have grown across the globe. Sharing his experience, where he met one of his clients at an international event, he highlights, “One chairman of a company from Egypt came and informed me that he buys one of our products regularly at US $ 13 per kg from China and asked me what was our price? I avoided to reply as our price was double and he would run away. Instead, I talked about our quality and service etc. But he insisted to know our price. When I told him that our price was US $ 26 per kg he picked up his bag and wanted to leave. In an attempt to save the situation, I once again showed him the sample of the product and our good quality specifications etc. He did not budge. Then I told him that my product was ‘cost effective’. This amused him. He argued when our product was twice the competition how could our product be cost effective? I reasoned with him and told him that since he was the CEO of his company and he should be more worried about the cost of the final product they manufactured than just the cost of raw material purchased. We made a deal to supply one batch quantity of 200 kgs to him with the condition that he would pay us US $ 13 per kg if our product was not cost effective and if yes, he would pay us US $ 26 per kg. After 4 weeks of supply, he called me and paid US $ 26 per kg and placed another order for 500 kgs supply. Now after 20 years he does not ask us our price and places orders regularly. Our prices are still much higher than the competition but our product quality helps reduce the processing cost at our customer’s end giving them a much lower cost of production! We try to keep all our customers satisfied with excellent quality and documentation to retain most of them. Most of our business is repeat orders.”
Dr. Janak Sheth has always been a motivational source as a industry stalwart and a great mentor for budding students.
“We are relatively new in the field of Biotechnology. The government has been working hard to develop our capabilities in Biotechnology area. Several colleges offer courses in Bachelors and Masters in Biotechnology. There are challenges in the growth of the fermentation industry in India as the costs of power and key raw materials are much higher than China. However low volume and high-cost products from fermentation are being manufactured in India. Products from Biotechnology will soon replace many synthetic products being manufactured owing to their lower costs and lesser side effects. Several targeted therapy molecules are being synthesized and do provide a solution to unmet needs of the pharma industry.”
Century pharmaceutical is one such company that has taught the pharma sector to be fearless and innovative and with Dr. Sheth’s humble and liberal ideology, there will always be something to learn from his splendid journey.
