Pankaj Kumar Undwar: A Trailblazing Industry Leader Mending Gaps In The Pharmaceutical Industry
Pankaj Kumar Undwar
CEO
Envisaging the eminence of this promising sector three decades back, Pankaj Kumar Undwar (CEO, Adonis Laboratories) ventured into the pharmaceuticals sector to see himself as a prominent industry leader.
Influenced by the autobiographies of reputed conglomerates such as JRD Tata and Jack Welch, Pankaj ventured into the private sector, especially into the thriving pharma sector at the onset of his career with a sturdy intention of reaching the pinnacle of success. Gradually honing his core skills during his professional tenures of 33 years, Pankaj has been associated with some note worthy pharmaceutical firms such as Lupin Pharmaceuticals, Sandoz, Torrent Pharmaceuticals, IPCA, Alembic Pharmaceuticals, Cadila Pharmaceuticals, and Maneesh Pharmaceuticals, before ascending the position of CEO of Adonis Laboratories.
Having nurtured an optimistic intuition within him that inspires him to accept new challenges and progress ahead, Pankaj has been able to carve his identity as a competent and resourceful industry leader who is adroitly engaged to refurbish the highly phenomenal pharmaceutical industry.
Below is an excerpt of Pankaj’s interview with CEO Insights.
How would you define Adonis Laboratories as an organization? What unique proposition does it offer to its clients?
As one of the prominent midsize organizations across the pharmaceutical domain, Adonis Laboratories was started 40 years back. The company has slowly paved its path into the industry by demonstrating exponential growth year on year. Having a very strong presence in the acute segment, especially cough, cold, fever and so on, we have always had a very strong and loyal field force. However, our expansion plan over a geographically larger area has always been a major hurdle. Adopting a strict people oriented policy which has been our hallmark for years, we believe in following SOPs of the pharma industry by catering-high quality products.
Since the COVID outbreak, the pharmaceutical industry has been the most sought after industry. What major challenges have you faced pertaining to the pandemic, and how did you overcome them?
The pandemic time was extremely challenging for the Indian pharma industry, especially for small and midsized organizations like us. But the respiratory market was badly hit because most of the respiratory problems were associated with COVID-19. The first six-seven months were a quite tough time for us and especially our biggest market share in the respiratory market was badly affected. At that time, reaching customers and hooking them was taxing and demanding because most places were on lockdown, and even doctors were reluctant to be physically present. During this pandemic, also the big brands virtually started cannibalizing the small brands. Few small and midsized companies also started either laying off their employees or cutting their salaries off during these crucial periods.
However, we decided not to remove a single person. Using the online technologies aggressively, we kept on counseling and supporting our employees as well as all of our associated customers. This has boosted the morale and confidence of our people to enhance our brand’s connectivity and generation of prescription. Although it was a tough time for us to remain in touch with our customers, we were successful in maintaining a seamless connection with them through digital platforms. At present also, we are trying to explore various methodologies to reach the customers by introducing some new distribution incentives for the distributors to improve cash flow. We are also planning to introduce a few nutraceutical products to capture the sudden and new demand, including the OTC segment, which we were not representing earlier.
As one of the prominent midsize organizations across the pharmaceutical domain, Adonis Laboratories was started 40 years back. The company has slowly paved its path into the industry by demonstrating exponential growth year on year. Having a very strong presence in the acute segment, especially cough, cold, fever and so on, we have always had a very strong and loyal field force. However, our expansion plan over a geographically larger area has always been a major hurdle. Adopting a strict people oriented policy which has been our hallmark for years, we believe in following SOPs of the pharma industry by catering-high quality products.
Adopting a strict people oriented policy which has been our hallmark for years, we believe in following SOPs of the pharma industry by catering-high quality products
Since the COVID outbreak, the pharmaceutical industry has been the most sought after industry. What major challenges have you faced pertaining to the pandemic, and how did you overcome them?
The pandemic time was extremely challenging for the Indian pharma industry, especially for small and midsized organizations like us. But the respiratory market was badly hit because most of the respiratory problems were associated with COVID-19. The first six-seven months were a quite tough time for us and especially our biggest market share in the respiratory market was badly affected. At that time, reaching customers and hooking them was taxing and demanding because most places were on lockdown, and even doctors were reluctant to be physically present. During this pandemic, also the big brands virtually started cannibalizing the small brands. Few small and midsized companies also started either laying off their employees or cutting their salaries off during these crucial periods.
However, we decided not to remove a single person. Using the online technologies aggressively, we kept on counseling and supporting our employees as well as all of our associated customers. This has boosted the morale and confidence of our people to enhance our brand’s connectivity and generation of prescription. Although it was a tough time for us to remain in touch with our customers, we were successful in maintaining a seamless connection with them through digital platforms. At present also, we are trying to explore various methodologies to reach the customers by introducing some new distribution incentives for the distributors to improve cash flow. We are also planning to introduce a few nutraceutical products to capture the sudden and new demand, including the OTC segment, which we were not representing earlier.
As the CEO of Adonis Laboratories, how do you apply your experience across the pharma and Life sciences domain to lead the company?
Working from the bottom line of the pyramid to the top level, I have acquired a strong experience so far. In such situations, the first and foremost thing for me is to inject energy and create self belief among all of our employees that we can become a major player in the pharma industry. We always choosee employees who are result oriented rather than people who have a stagnant mindset. Engaged in the brand building process, our work cultures and results are focused on ROI, the importance of new brands, expansion of existing as well as a new market which relies on training and development of employees, along with very robust and system-oriented SOPs. When I joined Adonis Laboratories in 2019, I took over this assignment to reframe the operational functionalities of the company, and now we are on the right track. Although during covid we faced some turbulences, now again, we are creating the momentum to move in the right direction.
What is the roadmap that you have planned for Adonis Laboratories?
Adonis Laboratories holds a tremendous opportunity in the future because it's a company with high integrity and we always follow a very strong SOP in our statutory payments or any other compliances. Seldom having any insouciance on our behalf, our company is absolutely synonymous with having a very strong approach and intention to further penetrate into the industry.
COVID has certainly given a significant boost to the pharma industry. So, it is an excellent opportunity for us to take and make our position secure amongst the Top 100 pharma companies in India. According to me, it is the most favorable time for us to take our company to the next level. We have a robust plan which includes strengthening our therapeutic basket while improving productivity from the existing market. Simultaneously we want to explore the new market because the new market is absolutely unexplored, and this will give a lot of opportunities for a new drug delivery system. We also want to boost the use of technologies to reach customers and attract talents from the industry to boost the growth factor of our company as well as provide opportunities to the budding professionals of this domain.
Pankaj Kumar Undwar, CEO
Being associated with the pharma sector for more than 3 decades, Pankaj is equipped with some prolific traits of the rapidly burgeoning industry starting from all departments sales, marketing, Medical Supply Chain Management, procurement, human resources, and so on. As the CEO of Adonis laboratories, Pankaj has been handling the complete operations of the company and intends to take this opportunity to take this company to the next level.
Working from the bottom line of the pyramid to the top level, I have acquired a strong experience so far. In such situations, the first and foremost thing for me is to inject energy and create self belief among all of our employees that we can become a major player in the pharma industry. We always choosee employees who are result oriented rather than people who have a stagnant mindset. Engaged in the brand building process, our work cultures and results are focused on ROI, the importance of new brands, expansion of existing as well as a new market which relies on training and development of employees, along with very robust and system-oriented SOPs. When I joined Adonis Laboratories in 2019, I took over this assignment to reframe the operational functionalities of the company, and now we are on the right track. Although during covid we faced some turbulences, now again, we are creating the momentum to move in the right direction.
What is the roadmap that you have planned for Adonis Laboratories?
Adonis Laboratories holds a tremendous opportunity in the future because it's a company with high integrity and we always follow a very strong SOP in our statutory payments or any other compliances. Seldom having any insouciance on our behalf, our company is absolutely synonymous with having a very strong approach and intention to further penetrate into the industry.
COVID has certainly given a significant boost to the pharma industry. So, it is an excellent opportunity for us to take and make our position secure amongst the Top 100 pharma companies in India. According to me, it is the most favorable time for us to take our company to the next level. We have a robust plan which includes strengthening our therapeutic basket while improving productivity from the existing market. Simultaneously we want to explore the new market because the new market is absolutely unexplored, and this will give a lot of opportunities for a new drug delivery system. We also want to boost the use of technologies to reach customers and attract talents from the industry to boost the growth factor of our company as well as provide opportunities to the budding professionals of this domain.
Pankaj Kumar Undwar, CEO
Being associated with the pharma sector for more than 3 decades, Pankaj is equipped with some prolific traits of the rapidly burgeoning industry starting from all departments sales, marketing, Medical Supply Chain Management, procurement, human resources, and so on. As the CEO of Adonis laboratories, Pankaj has been handling the complete operations of the company and intends to take this opportunity to take this company to the next level.