Beyond cost what will shape India’s pharma competitiveness?

Lupin is moving towards a fully integrated, technology enabled operations ecosystem. How is the integration of manufacturing, supply chain and procurement helping the company build greater agility and resilience in an increasingly volatile global environment? 

The biggest change is that we no longer treat manufacturing, supply chain and procurement as separate functions. Under Global Technical Operations, we have brought Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Procurement, Engineering, Operational Excellence and EHS into one integrated operating model. This matters because some of the greatest opportunities to improve performance and efficiency lie at the interfaces between functions. By managing these interdependencies more effectively, we are able to improve throughput and resilience while making decisions across the value chain with a balanced focus on quality, service, compliance, cost and sustainability. This has helped us build a truly global operating model, allowing us to leverage capabilities, scale, best practices and insights across our network more effectively. 

In today’s environment, supply chain resilience starts with de-risking. This includes reducing dependency on single sources, strengthening supplier diversification, enhancing strategic sourcing and investing in backward integration where it creates long-term value. We view our suppliers of products and services as long-term partners in value creation, and we invest in partnerships that enhance reliability, innovation and continuity across the supply chain. 

Technology is the connective tissue that brings this model to life. Through digitalisation, automation and AI-enabled insights, we are improving visibility, accelerating decision-making and strengthening our ability to anticipate and respond to change. But technology creates value only when it improves outcomes for customers, patients and the business. Our focus is therefore not on technology for its own sake, but on applying it in ways that strengthen quality, service, resilience and performance. 

Ultimately, resilience is engineered through the seamless integration of quality, technology, supply planning and people. This is how we strengthen throughput and ensure a dependable and uninterrupted flow of medicines to patients worldwide. 

India has long competed on cost. From your experience across markets, is that advantage still enough? What will drive competitiveness over the next five years? 

Affordability is fundamental to ensuring broad and equitable access to quality medicines. However, cost advantage alone is no longer sufficient to create sustainable differentiation. 

Across global markets, success is increasingly being defined not just by scale and cost efficiency, but by quality, reliability, scientific excellence, innovation, technology adoption and speed of execution. 

In my opinion, four factors will shape the next phase of growth for the industry. First is patient centricity. Every decision across the value chain, from procurement and manufacturing to supply chain and quality, must ultimately be guided by patient needs. Organisations that can consistently ensure quality, reliability and uninterrupted access to medicines will be best positioned to build trust and create long-term value.

Second is quality. As we often say, compliance is the license to operate, but quality is what differentiates an organisation over time. Regulators, customers and patients expect consistent, world-class standards. Organisations that anticipate regulatory and industry trends, rather than simply follow them, will be better positioned to participate in more complex and highervalue segments. 

Third is innovation. As the industry evolves, long-term competitive advantage will depend on our ability to develop innovative solutions for complex healthcare challenges. Simply replicating what already exists is unlikely to create lasting value. The future will belong to organisations that can combine scientific expertise, technology and deep customer understanding to deliver differentiated products, processes and solutions.

Fourth is capability. As digitalisation, automation and AI redefine manufacturing and supply chains, lasting advantage will depend not on technology alone, but on how effectively it is combined with scientific expertise, process excellence and skilled talent. Technology is a means to an end; the real measure is the impact created for customers and patients. 

For years, India’s cost competitiveness laid the foundation for its success as a global pharmaceutical manufacturing hub. The next phase of growth will be driven by our ability to deliver quality, innovation, reliability and advanced manufacturing at scale, particularly in complex generics, biologics, specialty medicines and emerging modalities. 

The global pharma supply chain is being reshaped by geopolitics, China dependence and the push for local manufacturing. Where does this leave India? 

Over the last two decades, India has built a strong reputation as a trusted supplier of high-quality medicines to patients around the world. At the same time, recent geopolitical developments have highlighted the importance of building greater resilience across supply networks, particularly for APIs and key starting materials. Today, there is a greater focus on reducing concentration risk and creating more diversified, reliable supply chains. 

In this evolving landscape, India is well positioned to play a larger role. The country is already the world’s third largest pharmaceutical producer by volume, supplies nearly 50 per cent of all generic prescriptions dispensed in the United States, and is home to more than 750 US FDA-approved manufacturing facilities, the largest outside the United States. These strengths, combined with deep scientific talent, manufacturing scale and regulatory expertise, make India a natural partner for companies looking to build more diversified and resilient supply networks. 

As a trusted supplier to patients worldwide, the industry must continue to raise the bar on quality, reliability, compliance and supply continuity while investing in the capabilities needed to support future healthcare needs. If India continues to strengthen these foundations, it can elevate its position as a global manufacturing hub to a strategic partner in innovation, manufacturing and supply reliability for the global pharmaceutical industry. 

Resilience comes at a cost. How should pharma companies decide how much resilience they really need without losing their cost advantage? 

Resilience should be a calibrated capability, not a blanket strategy. The right approach is to understand where risks truly exist, assess their potential impact on patients and business continuity, and invest accordingly. 

At Lupin, we use a risk-segmented lens. For high volume, low-margin generics, cost efficiency remains the primary driver because patients depend on affordability. However, for critical therapies or products where we serve a large patient population and hold significant market share, the calculus changes. The higher the market share and the greater the potential impact on patients, the more deliberately we must focus on resilience. In such cases, the cost of a stockout or regulatory failure can far outweigh the cost of redundancy. 

Data and technology allow us to build resilient supply networks in a targeted and efficient way. We use AI-driven risk modeling to map our supply chain end-to-end, identify genuine vulnerabilities and quantify actual exposure — investing in dual sourcing, safety stock or nearshoring only where risk justifies it, while optimising aggressively elsewhere. 

The other lever is efficiency itself — automation, better yield management and leaner processes fund the resilience investments we need. The ultimate goal is to allocate resources where they can create the greatest impact, balancing affordability, supply reliability and patient needs in a disciplined and sustainable way. 

Lupin and other Indian companies are moving into more complex products. What changes when you move from high-volume manufacturing to more complex, high-value manufacturing? 

The model changes fundamentally. In traditional high-volume manufacturing, scale, standardisation and cost efficiency are the primary differentiators. In more complex products, success increasingly depends on scientific capability, deep process understanding, advanced technologies, manufacturing expertise and the ability to consistently meet stringent quality and regulatory standards. 

Complex products also carry higher execution risk — longer development cycles, more demanding technology transfer, higher regulatory expectations, and manufacturing processes that require greater precision and control. This is why we’re investing deliberately across complex generics, injectables, inhalation therapies, biosimilars, peptides and specialty products. 

The shift to complex, highvalue products is a shift from competing on efficiency alone to competing on capability. The organisations that succeed will be those that can consistently translate scientific innovation into highquality, differentiated therapies for patients at scale. 

Success therefore depends on the ability to connect science, quality, digital capability, manufacturing expertise and talent within one integrated operating system. 

Technology, AI and automation are changing manufacturing. Where do you see the biggest opportunity to create real business value, rather than simply improve efficiency? 

Technology, AI, and automation have traditionally been viewed from the lens of efficiency, but their greatest value lies in enabling better decisions, agility, and resilience across manufacturing operations. 

One of the most significant opportunities is in creating more predictive and proactive operations. By combining AI, advanced analytics and realtime manufacturing data, organisations can anticipate potential issues before they occur, whether that is equipment reliability, process variability or supply risks. The value extends beyond cost savings to improving quality, reliability and speed of execution. 

Another important area is end-to-end visibility across the value chain. Manufacturing does not operate in isolation, and the ability to connect demand signals, production planning, inventory, procurement and logistics enables faster, more informed decision-making. 

Technology also has the potential to accelerate innovation. Digital tools can improve process understanding, support smoother technology transfers and help bring new products to patients more efficiently. At the same time, particularly in a highly regulated industry like pharmaceuticals, technology adoption must be accompanied by strong governance, data integrity, transparency, clear accountability and appropriate human oversight. Ultimately, we do not get paid for technology itself; we get paid for the positive impact it helps us create for customers and patients. 

You have managed large, multi-country operations. What is the biggest shift you see coming in pharma manufacturing in the way companies invest, operate or compete? 

The biggest shift is that pharmaceutical manufacturing is moving from a scale-driven model to a capability-driven one. As products become more complex, supply chains more interconnected, and regulatory expectations more demanding, competitive advantage will increasingly depend on an organisation’s ability to combine scientific expertise, operational excellence, innovation and quality at scale. 

Technology, automation and AI will undoubtedly reshape how companies operate, but technology alone does not create value. The real differentiator will be an organisation’s ability to translate these tools into better quality, greater agility, stronger resilience and improved outcomes for patients. In that sense, the industry is moving from an era of manufacturing efficiency to one of manufacturing intelligence. 

India is uniquely positioned in this regard, with a deep pool of young, highly talented scientific, technical and engineering professionals. At Lupin, we believe strategy and capability building must go hand in hand. As we expand our focus on complex products, advanced manufacturing and digital technologies, we are equally committed to investing heavily in our talent pipeline, developing future-ready skills and building the leadership capabilities required for long-term growth. This requires one connected operating model in which strategy, capability building and execution reinforce one another. Sustainable performance is created when teams take shared ownership across functions and geographies, rather than optimising individual parts of the organisation in isolation. 

In line with that vision, Lupin’s FY26 investments included capacity enhancement and debottlenecking, infrastructure modernisation, technology upgrades, automation and process efficiency. These investments are not simply about adding capacity; they are about strengthening capability, improving utilisation, enhancing supply reliability and supporting sustainable long-term performance. 

Looking at India from both a local and global perspective, what is the one capability the industry must build now if it wants to remain a leading pharma manufacturing hub? 

The one capability India must continue to build is the ability to combine manufacturing excellence with innovation. India’s opportunity lies not just in manufacturing medicines efficiently, but in becoming a partner of choice for complex products. 

Innovation does not always mean inventing entirely new technologies. It is also about finding smarter ways to apply technology, science and data to solve complex challenges more effectively. As products, processes and supply chains become more sophisticated, the companies and countries that succeed will be those that can manage an important paradox: delivering greater complexity, quality and resilience while remaining competitive and affordable. 

That requires an ecosystem, not a single intervention: investment in technology, process science, digital systems, regulatory capability, infrastructure and people, alongside stronger collaboration between industry, technology providers, academia, regulators and specialised talent. 

 

References: 

https://static.pib.gov.in/WriteReadData/specificdocs/documents/2026/mar/doc2026321831401.pdf https://www.ibef.org/exports/ph armaceutical-exports-fromindia 

 

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