Chinese drug firms have begun luring senior scientists from Indian companies with strengths in documentation and English language to gain competence in the formulations segment. This trend is picking up at a time when India is trying to cut down its dependence on the Chinese supplies for bulk drugs or raw materials that go into making medicines.
The poaching from across the border could threaten the Indian drug makers and further heat up competition between the two Asian economies.
Though both nations boast of equal number of US FDA-approved manufacturing facilities, China leads in bulk drugs by a wide margin, while India is ahead in production and export of generic drugs, especially to regulated markets.
India has some 700 US FDA approved facilities, while China has about 600 such FDA approved plants. However, India got approvals for more than 300 drug master files (DMFs) accounting for nearly a third in the US market, whereas China lagged with around 150 DMFs approved, according to an Edelweiss report of November 2014.
A senior commerce ministry official, who did not want to be named, said, "Chinese companies of late are increasingly hiring the cream of Indian pharmaceutical scientists with strengths in formulations, some of whom are currently working with Indian pharmaceutical companies with operations in China. At least, 50-60 Indian pharmaceutical professionals were recruited by the Chinese firms in the management cadre over the past two years."
Chinese pharmaceutical companies are offering tempting pay packages, nearly 2.5-3 times more than what the Indian firms are paying, to attract Indian scientists to Chinese firms, said CV Narayan Rao, executive vice president at Natco Pharma. Rao, who was in China for nearly five years as head of Asia Pacific operations for the joint venture of Dr Reddy's Laboratories, said, "Apart from hefty pay package, Indian scientists get attracted to the robust urban and manufacturing infrastructure the Chinese entities offer, apart from a safe work environment."
Confirming the trend, director general of India's Pharmaceuticals Export Promotion Council(Pharmexcil) PV Appaji told ET, "Several instances of certain leading Chinese pharmaceutical firms hiring top Indian pharmaceutical scientists have come to our notice. It could be aimed at augmenting filing of abbreviated new drug applications (ANDAs) in the US and other regulated markets as China is currently building huge capacities to produce copycat medicines. We guess this trend should over a period of time help Indian companies increase their presence in China and vice versa."
A top Indian scientist, who did not wish his or his Chinese company's name to be identified, said he could not refuse the hefty salary and facilities offered two years back by his current employer on the east coast of China near Shanghai. Chinese drug makers that are increasingly hiring Indian talent pool have their facilities in the provinces of Zhejiang, Guangdong, Jiangsu and Hebei.
Chinese government and companies are scouring across the globe for talent by organising job fairs to attract specialised workforce, given their swelling need for a well trained workforce to support plans to move up the value chain in the life sciences sector, said KPMG's life sciences head Utkarsh Palnitkar.
"As China moves up the value chain from manufacturing 'simple to manufacture' molecules to 'more complex to manufacture', there will be a growing need to focus on research and development activities, that will push the demand for specialized job roles further," he told ET, adding that China was luring the Indian talent pool with its competitive compensation and benefits packages, given the growing demand for talent pool. Nazia Vasi, founder of Inchincloser, an Indo-China language and cultural consultancy, said, "Nearly 15 out of 100 top professionals in a recent batch that learnt Mandarin (official language of People's Republic of China) were from the pharmaceutical sector."
Palnitkar of KPMG said Chinese firms have been investing substantially on research and development (R&D) over the past few years with the R&D spent on pharmaceutical industry crossed $3,250 million in 2011 from a mere $162 million a decade back. The emerging trend could prove a major threat to the prospects of Indian drug makers, reckons Sujesh Vasudevan, president and head of Glenmark's India business. "China appears to have realized that there is no much value in active pharmaceutical ingredients and it is time for moving up the value chain. The Chinese have proved a serious threat and India should wake up before it is too late."
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