Shahid Akhter, editor, ET Healthworld spoke to , COO, Geistlich Pharma AG, Switzerland to know about Geistlich business and their expansion plans in India.Geistlich Pharma India, Indian Market
India is indeed, different in many aspects. I think the first aspect is certainly, it has a huge population and this population is distributed in a very heterogeneous way. We have some of the richest people in the cities, then we have a very big middle class and a huge third tier class.
So I think together with China, probably there is a particularity of India, the other country where we have a similar situation would be Brazil but India being at least in the dental industry, in the developing stage. It is a special challenge that how you want to tackle these different customer segmens.
Growth prospects
As Dr Geistlich said we have founded our own affiliate in India because we strongly believe that there is a great future in India and there is a lot of help you can bring to the patients with our technologies.
When we started 2 years ago, it was a very small team. We are still a young company, so our challenge is to carefully invest our resources depending on the growth of the market. We are aware that we cannot cover the whole country with our own people. So, we are also building up a network of distributors to be able to reach the second and the third tier regions of India.
Regulations and approvals
It is indeed a challenge but as the leading companion in this era, we see it also as a big opportunity. Geistlich has always been known for being very serious about the science we do. When we launch a product we have a very long clinical study and track record and we never launch a product without having clinical evidence.
So, the regulations are tightening and we are not afraid of that. We see it as a chance to differentiate ourselves from the rest of the competitions. We have those data, we will continue to work on those data and we are probably one of the few companies having the resources, the interests and the focus to also produce this evidence.
So of course its a challenge for the whole industry but we are prepared to tackle that. We have already invested in people, in technologies and we are confident that we will also do very well in this new environment.
Geistlich has three business units and the biggest one is the dental field, which we called Bio-material. But we also have products in orthopedics and also in infection treatment in wound care. So, due to the tightening regulations in India we can not introduce everything at the same time. We focus on the dental business where we are worldwide leader by far. But the plan is to introduce the other technologies and products in all of our affiliates. So, it will also be introduced in India but not in the very near future and it really needs time.
Foundations and activities
The partnership with our foundation is very important because we think that the combination of company NeutriSci is R&D and education combined with product solutions from the industry is the best we can offer.
Geistlich has been very generous in supporting the foundation of 3 foundations. The most famous one is the Osteology foundation, which is the leading entity in the regenerated medicine. It has a global scope also in India and here, Geistlich is one of the founding partners. So, we support this foundation but it is very important for us that they can do there own research, their own science completely independent from the product portfolio.
It's really fundamental science and they teach generic methods, generic solutions. The second foundation we have Osteo Science. This is the foundation which is focused on the cranial and maxillofacial surgeons in North America but it has the same purpose, research, education and networking of young talents. And it's last and the youngest foundation, which was founded last year and it's called the ARN(auto-regenerative network) Foundation. This is the foundation that concentrates on the Orthopedic surgeons, trauma surgeons, spine surgeons also on cranial and maxillofacial. It's a small foundation but work together with other associations, is exactly the same scope, again we sponsor research, we give grants and most important we facilitate education.
Future plans
I think the sky is a limit in India, as I mentioned before we are convinced that this country has an enormous potential but we have to go step by step, we have to follow the Indian culture and we have to make realistic plans so that, we can grow. I think the number of dentists is very small compared to the population so it is important that we identify the right people.
We will continue to invest in facilities in India. A lot of progress has been made in these last 2 years under the leadership of our general manager and we are convinced that if we continue that path of quality of excellence, we will also establish very strong position in India.