GSK Pharma Looking To Launch Couple Of Vaccines Next Year, Says India MD Annaswamy Vaidheesh

Annaswamy Vaidheesh, vice president -South Asia and India MD of Glaxosmithkline Pharmaceuticals, spoke to CNBC-TV18 about the company’s business plans and shared growth outlook.

“We have launched the programme of ‘Focus: Putting energy where it matters’. We have done a rationalisation of our products. At the end of the day, in the pharmaceutical industry having multiple brands can distract your energy and is part of our accelerated growth strategy. We are focused on specific therapy areas and so far it is paying dividends and we continue to believe that we should get a similar kind of growth. That is the reason why we have invested 30 percent more in the frontline and reduced our headcount in the backend,” Vaidheesh said on the sidelines of the Motilal Oswal 15th Investor Conference.

In terms of margins, he added, “The whole focused approach or the rationalisation of product objective is to improve profitability and our aim is to move up above 20 percent EBITDA and to beat our forecast and we will continue to grow faster than the market.”

“We have a good plan in place to make sure that we continue to deliver,” said Vaidheesh.

“About 28-30 percent of the business is under price control”, he said.

Speaking about new drug launches or vaccines, Vaidheesh said, “We have launched new drug for asthmas, particularly for severe eosinophilic induced asthma we have launched a product called Nucala – this is for the people where there is no other option, this is the last line of option, this is the monoclonal antibody and we are getting a good response from the doctors, from the chest physicians and the patients. As far as the vaccine is concerned, we have launched INFANRIX Hexa and we will be looking at launching a couple of more vaccines by next year. They are all pretty interesting and this will be leading the pack in the vaccine segment.” – CNBC-TV18