WILL BUILD EMERGING MKTS AS THIRD PILLAR OF OUR BIZ: CADILA

is passing on the baton of Zydus Cadila to his 38-year-old son, SHARVIL PATEL ,a transition planned for the past decade. Patel Sr (he's also president this year of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry) took the company from a ~250-cr

When did you decide to finally pass on the mantle?

Pankaj: That the baton would be passed on one day was known from Day 1, when he joined. We have discussed this many a time among ourselves. When he joined, he was given the project of touching $1 billion annual revenue for the company and that gave him the opportunity to work with teams across the board. He got familiar with the company, got to learn the business. There were 70 projects all across under the $1-bn project, in research, marketing, commercialisation, finance, HR (personnel).

After that, I was gradually giving him responsibilities and now I do not have many left to me. This was done very smoothly, step by step. He is now touching 40, the right time to pick up full responsibility. For the next 20 years, the energy of a young man would be given to the organisation; I would be there to mentor. In any organisation, this is required, a continuous line of leadership.

What is the next project you will work on? How apt is the timing, now that you are doing well in the US?

Sharvil: The next project is this company itself. We hope to do well in the US. I am not euphoric, I am pragmatic. There would be headwinds for the US market. We have a good pipeline coming through and the next couple of years look good for us. Going forward, the challenge in the US is to make sure we build some other line of business, beyond generics. That's where I'd like to put some more effort. We made an acquisition at the beginning of this year (Sentynl Therapeutics); we need to make sure we build on that organically as well. That is, make sure good products come through, especially in the speciality segment.

Your father built his empire through the inorganic route. Would you like to pursue the same strategy or

consolidate?

Sharvil: Currently, we would consolidate but we also have to be opportunistic. If we get a good opportunity, we cannot let that pass by. We have identified areas where we want to work. As I said, the US is one area where we'd look to differentiate the portfolio, front-end presence. We have some gaps in the emerging markets portfolio, not very significant but some gaps. We would like to strengthen that if we get something at the right price.

And, in India, we are confident because we have a large presence and established marketing practices and businesses. So, if we get some good brand opportunities or in-licensing opportunities, we would definitely work on that. But, currently, we do not have a very large M&A (merger and acquisition) plan. We don't think we need to do it right now. We need to consolidate on what we have built so far.

You had taken over at Zydus Wellness a few years earlier. How has that experience prepared you for today's role?

Sharvil: They are very different businesses and cannot be compared. But, what happened at Zydus Wellness is that we had reached a size and scale when we needed to change the way we were doing things. While we made that change, we struggled for two years to bring growth back into the business. So, while we did well on margins and profits, our growth was subdued. We made some mistakes on the way as well. Going forward, everything is aligned well. Sales and marketing is doing well. We have a good leadership position there and the leader is very motivated to drive the business forward. Putting the right people in place has been a good learning for me at Zydus Wellness. We are very keen to do M&As in this business now. If something works out, we would like to do it in the next one year. It has good RoI (return on investment), good cash flow.