Tag Archives: academia

The Indian Drug Industry’s Looming Talent Crisis – A Recent Landscape

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India’s pharmaceutical industry, a global generics and drug manufacturing powerhouse, is facing a critical talent deficit. The shortage of skilled professionals is impeding innovation, drug development, and the industry’s overall competitiveness.

This challenge, exacerbated by recent industry dynamics, demands immediate attention to unleash the sector’s full potential. In today’s article, I shall dwell on this area.

Talent challenges and focus areas:

The industry is facing a significant talent crunch. Here’s a breakdown of the key challenges with recent, specific examples:

1. Skill Shortage:

The industry demands expertise in areas like regulatory affairs, data science for clinical trials, biosimilars, and gene therapy. However, the current education system and skill development programs haven’t kept pace with this evolving landscape.

Example: A 2023 report by TeamLease points out a growing demand for professionals with expertise in regulatory affairs, particularly, those adept at navigating international regulations for drug approvals. This is crucial as Indian companies increasingly target overseas markets.

2. The Great Resignation Impact:

Example: A 2024 article in The Economic Times highlighted a recent exodus of mid-level managers from several Indian pharma companies. The report cited factors like stagnant salaries, lack of growth opportunities, and a competitive job market as reasons for the increased job hopping.

3. Competition for Talent:

Example: A recent news piece in BioSpectrum Asia (May 2024) discussed the fierce competition for experienced professionals in the biosimilars space. Companies like Biocon and Reliance Life Sciences are aggressively hiring and offering lucrative packages to attract top talent in this rapidly growing field.

4. Lack of Industry-Academia Collaboration:

Example: A joint report by FICCI (Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry) and Ernst & Young (2023) highlighted the growing gap between the skills taught in universities and the practical needs of the pharma industry. The report urged closer collaboration between industry and academia to ensure curriculum updates reflect current industry requirements.

5. Diversity Issues:

Example: A 2024 study by Express Pharma revealed that despite comprising a significant portion of the workforce, women hold only around 15% of leadership positions in the top 20 Indian pharmaceutical companies. This highlights the need for targeted initiatives to promote women into leadership roles.

In such a scenario, some may obviously ask, what is my recommendation or the ways some companies are trying to address this issue. Here below is my prescription:

A prescription – A Multi-Pronged Approach, with Indian examples: 

Re-skilling and Up-skilling:

Example: Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, reportedly launched targeted training programs to equip existing employees with data science skills for clinical trial design and analysis. This approach empowers the current workforce and addresses the immediate skill gap.

Industry-Academia Collaboration:

Example: Lupin, as reported, partnered with IIT Delhi to establish a joint research center focused on drug delivery systems. This collaboration bridges the gap between academic knowledge and industry applications, better preparing graduates for real-world challenges.

Fostering Diversity and Inclusion:

Example: According to reports, Biocon’s “Women in Biopharma Leadership” program provides mentorship, training, and networking opportunities for aspiring women leaders. This initiative tackles the under-representation of women in leadership roles and unlocks the industry’s full talent potential.

As I discussed in my earlier article, ‘Diversity And Inclusion: A Missing Link For Indian Pharma‘ (June 25, 2018), the Indian pharma industry faces a critical talent shortage.

Building a Strong Employer Brand:

Example: Companies like Cipla can invest in employer branding initiatives to showcase their work culture, growth opportunities, and commitment to diversity. This can attract talent seeking a fulfilling career path and a positive work environment.

Leveraging Technology: Implementing AI-powered talent acquisition platforms can streamline recruitment processes and identify suitable candidates from a wider pool, including those from non-traditional educational backgrounds.

Conclusion:

By addressing these challenges through strategic investments in skill development, nurturing industry-academia partnerships, and fostering a more inclusive work environment, the Indian pharmaceutical industry can build a robust and future-proof talent pool. This will be equipped to drive innovation and ensure its continued success in the global market to maintain its competitive edge, sustainably.

By: Tapan J. Ray

Disclaimer: The views/opinions expressed in this article are entirely my own, written in my individual and personal capacity. I do not represent any other person or organization for this opinion.

 

The relevance of the Indian version of the Bayh-Dole Act – the country needs all stakeholders’ open debate on the proposed bill.

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The Bayh-Dole Act is an American legislation, which was originally sponsored by two US senators named Birch Bayh and Bob Dole. This Act deals with Intellectual Property (IP) arising out of US government funding. Bayh-Dole Act is also known as University and Small Business Patent Procedure Act. In December 12, 1980 this was enacted into a law by the US Congress.
What it does:
Under this Act, IP rights over government funded inventions for further development, license to other parties or direct commercialization are transferred to the universities and small businesses operating with government contracts. The government though retains its right to license the invention to any third party without any consent from the IP right owner or the licensee, if it feels that on a reasonable basis the public is being denied of the benefits of the invention.

The Indian version of the Bayh-Dole Act:

The Utilization of the Public Funded Intellectual Property Bill 2008, which has been formulated in line with the US Bayh-Dole Act, has already been approved by the Union Cabinet of India. This bill ensures both utilization and protection of the IP arising out of government funded research initiatives. Currently government funded academic institutions and research institutes cannot commercialize the inventions.

The proposed bill will not only allow them to patent such inventions but will also reward the inventors and the institutes with a share of its commercialization proceeds as per specific guidelines.
The bill has attracted a mixed response from the stake holders.

The relevance of Bayh-Dole Act in India:

Relevance of Indian version of the Bayh-Doll Bill in the post product patent regime in India is
significant. The core concept of the bill encourages innovation and ensures protection of patents and other forms of IP rights of the government funded R&D outcomes, where the owner of the intellectual property will be the government grant receipients or the government.

This bill is expected to offer to various research institutions, universities, small businesses and non-profit organizations, the IP rights on their inventions, resulted from the government funding. Overall environment towards innovation within the country is expected to get a boost in that process.

Is the ownership and protection of R&D a real remedy to make government academic institutions and universities self sustainable?

This is certainly not the only remedy, but an important one. This process will have significant potential to effectively facilitate technology transfer from government funded research laboratories or universities to the user industry to make these establishments self-sustainable.

What are the main implications of the bill if enacted in its current form?

Although the fine prints of the bill are not yet clearly known, the bill in its current form raises more questions than answers. Some of the concerns with the bill in its current form are as follows:

- This law could effectively transfer the decision making process about
publications of the research papers from the researchers and academia to
the bureaucrats in the government establishments, making the R&D
environment quite stifling for the researchers and the initiative
counterproductive.

- Academia at times will be compelled to incur significant expenditures
towards different types of IPR related litigation, which could have been
otherwise productively spent by these institutions towards research
initiatives.

- The learning and research may get transformed into another kind of
businesses activity, as such a law could change the research focus on to
the issues, which will be of greater commercial interest to various
industries and will offer immediate financial benefits to the
institutions. As a result vital non-commercial research, which could be of
critical interest to the nation as such, may take a back seat.

Conclusion:

The country will therefore need an extensive public debate on this bill, which has not taken place, as yet. The loose knots of the bill need to be tightened and the concerns of the stakeholders need to be adequately addressed before its enactment into a law.

By Tapan Ray

Disclaimer: The views/opinions expressed in this article are entirely my own, written in my individual and personal capacity. I do not represent any other person or organization for this opinion.