Could you provide a brief introduction to Unison and highlight some recent milestones?

Unison was founded by my father in 1981, with the mission of providing high-quality products at an affordable price. In India, the middle and lower-middle socioeconomic strata constitute a majority of the population, so affordability plays a huge role in deciding the medication for any therapeutic condition. We are predominantly a domestic company and we are focused on Gujarat. We have 177 SKUs that are high quality and cost effective and, in the state of Gujarat, we have a field force of 280 people marketing our products and two manufacturing facilities, one of which is WHO GMP certified and supplies to emerging markets and the domestic market. Our second facility was completed in 2017 and built for regulated markets. It is approved by the European Union and we will export to European countries from that facility and have already begun shipping to the United Kingdom. We have an R&D center with over 100 scientists and all three facilities are located in Gujarat. Two years ago, we began working on a new portfolio of products with the aim of entering new markets globally. During 2020, we hope to file some dossiers within these markets.

What are some of the key challenges you face in India as a manufacturer?

As a mid-sized company, the price dependency on Chinese imported APIs and intermediates is a critical deciding factor for any business decision. The second challenge we face is increasingly stringent regulations, not only in heavily regulated markets, but also in semi-regulated countries, which makes it more challenging for a growing company to enter these markets. The third challenge is price controls that affect us from an administrative point of view, but does not affect our prices because we already sell at reasonably low prices.

How has the change in environmental controls in China affected the price dependency on Chinese imports for the Indian market?

The large companies already have their own captive API facilities, however we are not at this scale. The eventual solution will be for India to manufacture its own APIs and it will take a few years for Indian manufacturers to be able to offer the cost effectiveness that China was offering. When the price of certain imports from China soared, many Indian companies stopped their production of drugs that required those imports. We were one of the only companies to continue producing at a loss for the benefit of the consumer, which is why today we are in the top 80 companies in India in terms of revenue sales and top 40 in terms of volume sales. In Gujarat, we are number one by volume sales and sixth in revenue for 13 consecutive years .

What is your product offering for the global markets?

We are in the process of designing a portfolio and have not narrowed down on one particular segment yet. We will adopt a market-driven model where we develop a product based on the market and have a partner or sell it to a front-end brand that is already established. Once we establish ourselves as a developer and manufacturer, we will sell the products under our brand name. We plan to develop a basket of 20 to 30 products over the next two to three years.

How do you identify gaps in new markets that Unison can fill?

The products we have identified are not necessarily innovation driven; some are coming off their patents or are already off-patent. Our strategy is to offer our price advantage to foreign markets and use our expertise of 38 years as manufacturers. We are in conversation with potential clients for whom we can manufacture in our EU-approved facility and provide a huge cost saving.

In addition to price, we can compete on technology. Prior to 2015, we had a small-scale R&D facility that was part of our manufacturing facility. We expanded to create a dedicated facility for R&D where we started exploring new technologies that can be more patient-friendly and compliant. We improvised our own formulations that provide incremental improvements to mouth dissolving products such as Vitamin B-12, where we can compete on the taste, speed of dissolving under the tongue and the effectiveness.

Could you provide an overview of Unison’s environmental compliance measures?

We are an environmentally-friendly company and we believe it is one of our primary responsibilities. We have a MEE plant (Multiple Effect Evaporation system) and we have zero liquid discharge across all our facilities. We try to use equipment and light fittings that consume minimal energy as well.

What is your vision for Unison over the next five years and do you have a final message for our readership?

Our aim is to penetrate the European market with a strong product basket. In the next five years, we hope to open marketing front in Europe and to be recognized as a generic player that provides quality products. We are looking to expand beyond Europe to New Zealand and Australia as well as to Central and Latin America and Africa. We want to extend our policies in India to other countries as a quality manufacturer with affordable prices.