Building a company, creating a town:
Shilpa Medicare’s Strategy into Global Markets

Introduction

With an ancient history dating back centuries 200 years, Raichur is now a flourishing town with a vibrating pharmaceutical industry. But it certainly wasn’t always the case. Going back to the 1980s, Raichur was underdeveloped and with few opportunities for its people.

Shilpa Medicare

Mr. Vishnukant C. Bhutada

Managing Director

Raichur-born Vishnukant Bhutada founded Shilpa Medicare in 1987. One of the first pharmaceutical companies to settle in Raichur, in the heart of Karnataka, south of India. Since then, the company has grown from a small business into a global pharmaceutical potency, known especially for its innovations in oncology and affordable generic medicines.

Pharmaoffer had the privilege of talking to Madhav Bhutada, son of Vishnukant Bhutada and Promoter of Shilpa Medicare worldwide.

Madhav Bhutada

 

 

“My father wanted to do something for his town,” said Madhav.

“He studied here and realized that there was a lot of unemployment and illiteracy, but the people’s eagerness to embrace any opportunity was evident.”

Starting a business is not easy, let alone in a remote area, Vishnukant did everything himself in the beginning from managing finance accounts to even handling product deliveries by car. Slowly, he built a trustworthy team that is still there.

“We’ve retained employees who joined us at the very beginning,” the executive shares.

Madhav states that it’s this blend of veteran knowledge and fresh talent that fuels the company’s innovation and adaptability, helping it to stay relevant in a fast-evolving industry.

“It’s not the town that matters, it’s the people and the environment.” – Madhav Bhutada, Worldwide Promoter Shilpa’s Medicare.

Industry challenges are what excite Shilpa’s Medicare to keep pushing further. In the beginning, the main issue was talent scarcity because it wasn’t easy to attract the right people to Raichur. Today, with 800 people working in their headquarters and other API and intermediate companies in Raichur, the main issue is distinguishing themselves from the competition. In this regard, Madhav Bhutada names several factors.

The first reason behind Shilpa’s success is the market and clients they chose to work with, namely the Japanese market, which the executive says it was detrimental to their success. The Japanese market is very competitive, but it opens a lot of doors once you break in and Shilpa has been working with the top five pharma companies in Japan which have been their regular clients for the last 15 years. The hard work of entering such a demanding market like Japan has given a lot of credibility to Shilpa Medicare, which paid off throughout the years with more projects from other places and markets.

The second reason is speed. With the CDMO market booming, speed and delivery are crucial, and Shilpa provides both by maintaining a flexible strategy and molding it to the client’s needs. For example, for some clients, Shilpa can invest everything on their own until the company they are working with reaches phase three of the clinical study, then once they get the funding they even it out. On this subject, the executive adds “We are invested in our client’s projects, which gives them confidence that we are very serious about treating their projects as if they were our own. This distinguishes us from the competition”.

The third factor in Shilpa’s Medicare success is that they offer a “one-stop shop solution”, providing their clients with aid from initiation to registration and commercialization. Madhav continues, “We have our in-house regulatory team, production quality, and all the supporting functions that any client would require.” All this plays a crucial role because people want hassle-free solutions, and Shilpa can provide them.

Looking ahead, Shilpa Medicare is not just keeping but also aiming to set the pace with upcoming business segments like peptide synthesis, polymer development, and biosimilars. Besides this, they are investing in futuristic technologies. “We are also working on integrating flow chemistry and artificial intelligence,” he explains, highlighting the company’s proactive approach to adopting technologies that promise to revolutionize the pharmaceutical manufacturing landscape.

The conversation then shifted to Shilpa’s social engagement and sustainability efforts. Shilpa Medicare is not only engaged with corporate social responsibility but also takes it to the next level, working with several local NGOs to secure the implementation of environmental measures that serve the population and protect Raichur’s natural resources. 

For the last two years, Shilpa has been contributing to a massive tree plantation implemented by Green Raichur, an NGO that has successfully completed 21,000 seedling plantations in the Raichur district. Another important project is “Sujalam Suphalam,” or Water Conservation project, which aims to enhance access to community water resources while removing accumulated silt in the ponds over the years and utilizing it to improve the fertility of the local farmer’s agricultural land. “With heat waves getting worse, droughts have a huge impact in India, affecting farmers everywhere” – said Madhav Bhutada.

Beyond sustainability, Shilpa is also involved with social projects that tackle people’s necessities, especially providing basic facilities to rural schools like desks and benches. “During our rounds, we saw that there weren’t even chairs in the classrooms in Raichur. Children were sitting on the floor to learn and get educated. We discovered it’s the little gestures that matter, and this had a huge impact on children’s motivation to learn, giving them a lot of enthusiasm to attend school”. Beyond aid for children Shilpa also you can find out more about Shilpa’s Corporate Responsibility Projects here.

With a regulatory-recognized manufacturing setup and an experienced scientific expert team, Shilpa Medicare is a big player in the Oncology market. They currently offer a complete range of products in this segment, including APIs and formulations, both in terms of R&D and manufacturing capabilities. For Shilpa, the future is now, and the digitalization of systems and brand visibility is not a future trend but a necessity of today. The pandemic was a big eye-opener for the company, and after that, they won’t be wasting any more time to adopt new tools that help business. Present in several continents, Shilpa Medicare aims to keep expanding, staying true to its philosophy, a statement of the companies that are making  India the second largest API market in the world. Discover all of Shilpa’s Medicare products on their company page here.