Stability chambes play an important role in the pharmaceutical space. Newtronic has developed full range of products and caters the demands of its customers. NM Mehta, Managing Director, Newtronic Lifecare Equipment shares the company’s corporate plans with Usha Sharma
What are Newtronic’s plans’ for the future?
We are setting up our second manufacturing facility at Umbergaon. This facility will help us to achieve our goal to the next level and meet the growing market demands.
In our commitment to create customer value at all times, our R&D team continues to innovate with a primary and unstinted focus on reducing the carbon footprint of our products.
How big is the Indian stability chamber market and how fast is it growing?
Though significantly big, we still feel that the Indian stability chamber market is still at its nascent stage.
With most of the mulitnational pharma companies choosing India over China as a cost-effective destination for stability operations, the market is well poised to get bigger. Adding to that is the growing demand of the domestic pharma companies to launch their products in other countries and therefore meet the regulatory market compliance norms.
What role does stability chambers plays in pharma industry?
It plays a critical role. Stability testing and stability analysis has become an important criteria for regulatory bodies these days to ascertain the efficacy and market-worthiness of drug products and drug substances. Degradation of a product prior to its expiry period not only results in failure of therapy but may also result in patient’s death in some of the cases.
Any discrepancies arising out of stability analysis can delay the approvals for the pharma companies to commercially launch their drug product.
What percentage of the market has been captured?
In the domestic market, our market share is approximately 65-70 per cent and growing steadily at 25 -30 per cent per year.
Our international sales has grown at a whopping 100 per cent in the last two years.
With installations of more than 6000 chambers, almost all the leading pharma companies are our customers today.
How many products are in the pipeline and when do you plan to launch them?
We will soon launch the ultra-low deep freezer series. These products will achieve temperatures as low as -80ºC. One of the USPs of these freezers is that they will seamlessly integrate with ICDAS – NEWTRONIC’s 21 CFR Part 11 ready software. Thereby with features of data logging, realtime and comprehensive alarms, audit trails, data trending, e-comments and e-signatures, the customer benefits from a product that complies to the regulatory markets.
What services do you provide to your clients?
Our service programmes are quite comprehensive in nature. It ensures that the customer sees Newtronic as a one-stop solution provider for all the stability requirements. We offer all kinds of after-sales support and services. Chamber commissioning, qualification, documentation (DQ, IQ, OQ, PQ), comprehensive and non-comprehensive AMC programmes, calibration/ validation, chamber upgradations and refurbishing, audit support are some of our offerings in this area.
Our customers (international-based customers) are also greatly benefited by our online support programme, an efficient medium to diagnose and resolve any software programme related issues as well as carry out periodic upgradations.
Our service team spans across all the major pharma hubs of India and globally across 37 countries.
Stability testing is 24/7 and any breakdowns will require the users to file deviations – something that everyone wishes not to! Undoubtedly, after-sales support and service is at the core of our business. They are the most important parameters for the customers to measure our success and their satisfaction levels in using our products. We take pride in the fact that our service support has been greatly appreciated by our customers and majority of them have rated it as fast and effective.
What trend do you see in the market and how fast can Newtronic gain from this opportunity?
Clearly the trend is growth-oriented and very bullish. Under the leadership of the new government, the world is looking at India as the number one destination for investment and growth.
Newtronic is an established brand and a player in the field of stability testing. With our ability to understand and act quickly on customer expectations coupled with an aggressive and customer-oriented workforce, we believe we are ready to bag most of the opportunities in the market today, especially the challenging ones.
What is the strength of your workforce and do you plan to expand it?
We have a workforce of 200. It includes the team at our head-office-cum-plant in Mumbai, at our second upcoming plant in Umbergaon as well as our sales and services team spread all across India and abroad. This workforce is likely to grow by another 15-20 per cent in the coming months.
How large is your international presence and which markets do you plan to tap?
Every organisation seeks to increase its growth beyond the land of its origin. We have expanded our presence in more than 37 countries now. Our international presence is largely in the Middle-East and Far East countries. In this fiscal, our exports division have set targets to tap into newer geographies such as Russia, South Africa and other such emerging markets.
Along with a solid customer base, we have also nurtured the after-sales-support in these countries.
During the last fiscal what was the company’s turnover and how much it is projecting to earn from the current fiscal?
Our turnover will soon hit the Rs 1-billion mark. Indeed, it will be a proud moment for all of us at Newtronic. The sweat and toil in the past three and half decades is reaching a much desired milestone. I take this opportunity to thank each and every one within the industry who has been instrumental in this landmark achievement.
Tell us about the company’s expansion plans.
We have set aggressive expansion plans this fiscal. Expansions are planned not only in the manufacturing facility at Umbergaon but also in other areas. We are doubling our number of branch offices across India. Our sales and services teams are also getting beefed up. We are expanding to other geographies and with our new range of products. So overall, it is going to be an exciting journey for the Newtronic family.