Always remember that your goal is to ensure your customers (the patients) know that your product has the highest quality, is always available when they need it and reduces their cost of healthcare.
An Innovative Company Culture
For me, the position of Vice President, Head of U.S. Generic Rx at Taro Pharmaceutical Industries is the ideal place in the current landscape of the U.S. generics market.
Since 1988, when Taro entered the U.S. marketplace, they were laser-focused on differentiation and complexity, becoming one of the few generic companies focused on semisolids. Since its inception, Taro has fostered a culture of seeking challenges, going after difficult-to-develop dose forms, and initiating costly and high-risk biostudies, approaches that are more fundamental than ever for success in today’s large and competitive market. Joining a superb company like Taro, with an appropriately bold and innovative sensibility, was the most obvious next step for me.
Today’s generic drug market is very demanding. There are a lot of excellent pharma companies in the marketplace, and, as a result, we are seeing more and more ANDA approvals and very significant price competition.
Since 1988, when Taro entered the U.S. marketplace, they were laser-focused on differentiation and complexity, becoming one of the few generic companies focused on semisolids.
A Recipe for Success
In my view, a successful generic drug company is one that delivers on the following key practices:
- be a leader in your dose form space with a large portfolio of products,
- make sure you are cost competitive and seek every possible advantage
and efficiency to remain so, - have a strong product development team that will identify the right candidates
and get FDA approvals in the first wave, - ensure that you provide consistent and impeccable quality, and
- ensure that you always maintain ample flexibility to ramp up supply on short notice.
Taro has always followed these fundamental guidelines. With a key focus on extended topicals including unique delivery platforms, semisolids and complex oral solids, we currently have 204 approved ANDAs and 27 more that are awaiting FDA approval. Taro has invested year-over-year in semisolids and other niche products with high clinical and regulatory barriers to entry, technically complex manufacturing and opportunity for API synthesis.
With 58 drug master files (DMFs) currently submitted to the FDA, we aim to ensure that our key products are vertically integrated. We have taken the initiative to find dual sourcing for our key finished dosage forms. We are continuously assessing all aspects of our operations to identify opportunities to improve and find new efficiencies in our manufacturing operations and the underlying supply chain.
Committed to Quality, Innovation and Efficiency
All of our sites that supply products to Taro undergo rigorous inspections by all agencies. We have a strong track record of audits that resulted in no observations, and we continue to invest in improvements to our QA capabilities. We feel that our quality commitment is sufficiently robust to set the bar for the whole industry.
We are in the process of implementing a new SAP ERP system that will improve our inventory management and supply efficiency. Our goal is not only to be able to supply our customers, but also to be able to respond to any market shortage or demand from customers for whom our product is not currently their primary drug.
Our capabilities are even further enhanced through our integration with Sun Pharma, the majority owner of Taro. We leverage support from Sun’s India and U.S. operations, including strong financial backing and synergies between both businesses that come into play with various joint services that increase efficiencies while reducing redundancies and thus operating expenses.
Overall, Taro is committed to supporting any of our customers’ needs, and we look forward to expanding our partnerships and establishing new ones to develop new complex products for which we lack certain capabilities in-house. In addition, we offer ourselves as a commercial platform to companies that seek to sell products in the United States and would like to piggyback on our strong customer relationships and flawless service levels.
