The domestic pharma industry ranks fourth globally in terms of volume and 13th in terms of value. More so, the domestic companies are keeping abreast with the global developments and adopting new technologies in good manufacturing practice (GMP)-compliant facilities for manufacturing of drugs. However, the adoption towards automation is still not high on the agenda by the industry to achieve optimum operational efficiency.

Says JP Singh, president, Automation Industry Association (AIA): ??While the companies are extending their reach beyond Indian shores, it is also time for them for leveraging automation technologies to achieve agility, supply chain efficiencies and productivity improvements.??

In a seminar, Pharmatech 2008, organized by the AIA, Venkat Jasti, chariman, Pharmexcil, opined that that the business environment of the pharma industry is becoming increasingly demanding. The challenges include increasing law suits, less blockbuster discoveries, decreasing levels of reimbursement and the increasing levels of attrition in terms of manpower. In order to counter these challenges, there is a need to adopt automation for improving productivity and maintain quality consistency.

??While it costs over $1.76 billion for a new drug development, there is an impending pressure to accelerate product launches by two years which can improve the revenues by $600 million. Hence, to improve the operational excellence, it is necessary to reduce the manufacturing expenditure, ensure optimum efficiency and increase productivity through automation right from the process level to commercial manufacturing,?? he said.

Globally, the market size for the automation industry across all verticals is estimated over $60 billion and in India, it is over $2 billion. This is due to lower penetration levels among the players. Presently only large players such as the Ranbaxy, Cipla, Dr Reddy?s Laboratories, etc are increasingly looking at automation. There is a need to increase the awareness among the SME segment, which is claimed to be a big market for the automation industry, to become FDA-compliant and speed up the manufacturing processes.