Global generics market is facing challenges, driven by the US

NEWDELHI: The pharmaceutical industry has been put on the defensive about the rising prices of prescription drugs after criticism by US President Donald Trump. In an interview, Vasant Narasimhan, chief executive officer (CEO), Novartis International AG, talks about pricing issues in the US, how branded drugs have received a new impetus in India, and the firm’s strategy to tie up with start-ups to leverage digital innovation. Edited excerpts: issue here is how do we make medicines more affordable at the pharmacy counter and how can we address all elements of the system between the rebates that are given in the system, the way insurance is structured to make this a more sustainable approach for patients. We are focusing quite a bit on cell and gene therapy—a single infusion, single opportunity to give medicine and that has to be taken as a different topic altogether from the rest of chronically given medicines that’s going to be an important topic for us to tackle and educate the public on. Our goal is to be the leading or one of the leading medicine companies powered by data science and digital technologies. I want us to be diversified in the different disease areas we cover in our medicines business, diversified in our platforms of cell therapies, gene therapies, traditional drugs, biologics and then diversify by applying data sciences and digital technologies but also try to use our capital to be diversified across sectors. We continue to have partnerships with the big players like Google, Microsoft, Apple. We have a joint fund with Qualcomm so we continue to progress there. We have undertaken a number of partnerships with start-ups that are working in the digital health space.