Affordable innovation: Akhil Ravi
Aurigene Pharmaceutical Services CEO Akhil Ravi reveals how recent investments are driving access to affordable and innovative medicines.
Aurigene Pharmaceutical Services is a rising star in the contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) market, known for its innovative approach and high-quality services that differentiate it from its competitors.
"We have one of the longest histories of good manufacturing practice and one of the largest capacities available," CEO Akhil Ravi explains.
"Our track record and quality compliance has been very good over the last decade, but what really sets us apart is our ability to supply both intermediates and the final product active pharmaceutical ingredients to markets across the globe.
"Not many companies can have both the quality and regulatory reach to ensure their product can go to all the markets – that is a unique strength we have."
"What really sets us apart is our ability to supply both intermediates and the final product active pharmaceutical ingredients to markets across the globe."
This has been made possible thanks to the company's position as a wholly owned subsidiary of Dr. Reddy’s laboratories, which has provided connections to a huge supplier network and ecosystem both in India and globally.
Belonging to an ecosystem
"We call it the strategic business partner program, where we work almost exclusively with a certain number of suppliers, giving them the right of first refusal," Ravi continues.
"Many of these suppliers have gone on to become very, very large companies, but even today, because of the work we have done with them over the last few decades, we always enjoy that preferential sort of partnership and customer service status with them."
Advertisement
By nurturing these partnerships with suppliers over extended periods of time, alignment of ethics, standards and speed of delivery are just some of the ongoing benefits, as exemplified with companies such as laboratory furniture manufacturer Kewaunee.
"Building these trust-based relationships is part of the core values of the company," Ravi enthuses. "Because we can never do it alone, right? We need the whole village to make it happen."
Focusing on talent
One of the biggest challenges Ravi faces as CEO – a role he has held since 2022 – is the procurement of new talent.
"Fundamentally, we need to not just provide a service to the customer, but also be a partner to them in whichever area we’re working in," he explains.
"So that means the customer needs to work with us as an extended arm of their organization to take that molecule from an idea to the patient. Building a talent base that scales up is something we need to focus heavily on."
"Not many companies can have both the quality and regulatory reach to ensure their product can go to all the markets."
Ravi sees huge potential in both the contract research organization and CDMO industries within India, both for local audiences as well as internationally, with the aim for other countries to view India as a growing base to diversify supply chains.
"A lot of investments have gone into the operations, both in terms of manufacturing and laboratory digitization to ensure productivity and data accumulation," he says.
"The prioritization of high-quality manufacturing infrastructure has been critical and will enable companies to see India as a destination both for small molecules as well as biologists."
Bringing innovation to market
With extensive drug discovery and development capabilities and an ever-growing team of highly specialized scientists, Aurigene is committed to driving access to affordable and innovative medicines.
It does this by working with innovative biotech and big pharmaceutical companies across the world and providing research, development and manufacturing services to help bring their innovations to the market.
"A key success metric is how many products are we working on that are going to the market, and how many of those projects have contributed to an investigational new drug application filing," Ravi explains.
"That means those molecules are now going to go into clinical trials. So these are two lead indicators that tell us that the health of the business is going well."
"Given the growth aspirations we have, we need each leader to have an aspirational growth mindset."
In addition, a reliance on the best possible team of individuals, all of whom are not only immensely talented in their fields but also fit within the specific cultural framework that Aurigene has created, is in order to ensure the best possible outcomes for the company as a whole.
"We broadly call it ‘Aspire,’" Ravi says.
"Given the growth aspirations we have, we need each leader to have an aspirational growth mindset. You also need to have speed, rigor, people and leadership skills, an innovation mindset, a results-driven orientation and excellence in execution."