It’s been nearly 18 months since Shweta Rai took charge as Managing Director (India) and Country Division Head (South Asia), Bayer’s Pharmaceuticals Division – possibly the first woman helming these operations. In her first formal interaction, Rai explains the “revelation” from their recently implemented “dynamic shared ownership” concept, that helps with “busting bureaucracies”, among other things.
How has Bayer Pharma been doing in India?
Bayer is one of the fastest growing multinationals in India, we have done extremely well across our therapeutic areas. I attribute it to three pillars: innovation, access and people.
Bayer’s focus is to bring innovation faster to market, and that global innovative products be available for patients in India. Most of our assets have been launched close to the United States Food and Drug Administration’s (USFDA) approval. That’s our commitment to India. It’s (also) critical that we launch at an appropriate price for Indian patients. So we have used a tiered pricing approach for all our products. We are invested in conducting clinical trials to test the safety and efficacy of products, before launching here. We continuously invest in expanding indications for products as per the global USFDA approval.
We have partnered with Indian companies — Sun Pharma for Finerenone and Dr Reddy’s for Vericiguat — for patients in tier-II and beyond, to provide access to innovative medicines for chronic kidney disease and worsening heart failure, respectively. Bayer has added around 400 more employees in field force to reach more markets and take the benefit of these drugs to more patients.
The third pillar involves ‘dynamic shared ownership’ — a new management philosophy that Bayer is implementing globally. We implemented this in India last year. So 2024 was a year of revelation — while we were implementing dynamic shared ownership, we removed half of the management layers in the company. We expanded customer-facing teams and empowered them to make their own decisions. They are now organised in self-operating squads that make their own decisions with full accountability.
This has helped us make decisions faster for reaching customer-centric solutions faster, and a highly motivated team that is not dependent on bureaucratic behaviour or managerial approvals for taking small decisions.
How has it been, since the implementation of new model early last year?
The dynamic shared ownership has three components that are transformational. It rests on the concept of busting bureaucracy. We remove unnecessary managerial layers, and organise self-owned driven teams. So globally, if the managerial layers were more than 10, right now it’s being halved.
Similarly in India, we’ve removed layers and given ownership to customer-facing teams rather than (have) head office teams monitoring and reviewing them.
They have their own 90-day cycles wherein they define objectives, they own their objectives, and they are accountable for achieving those. It’s not easy because we are typically used to certain managerial or certain hierarchical structures.
We are more focused on how we are solving the problems of patients and doctors. As a result, in the last one year, we grew by around 30 per cent in the Indian market. We are aiming for higher growth this year.
You partner with local companies, but have also ended your joint venture (JV) with Zydus Lifesciences — could you explain?
The Zydus JV was supposed to end after 10 years. We extended that because of Covid-19 — by three years. It was pre- decided to end in 2024. We (continue to) stay close to Zydus.
We explore partnership opportunities on all our innovative assets; we are looking for partnerships that can help expand access — companies who have broader access to markets in India, who can add value to Bayer’s cause. After exiting the Zydus JV, we hired 400 more people (filed force, managers and some head functions). So there has been no impact on employees.
What products are lined-up for launch?
We are in the cardio-kidney- metabolic segments with Finerenone, Vericiguat, Acarbose and Rivaroxaban. We are working on bringing our secondary stroke prevention drug to India once approved by the USFDA. In women’s health care, we have a huge portfolio. We have the first non-hormonal postmenopausal drug (elinzanetant), being applied to USFDA. Our third segment is specialty medicine — ophthalmology, oncology and haemophilia. There is a pipeline and we’re trying to bring it to India.
Our strategy would be to stay focused in these three therapeutic areas, bring innovation faster to market, build big brands and provide the access to patients in India.
Could some of this be done in the next six months?
We recently got the approval for our haemophilia portfolio this year. So we’ll be bringing that to India. Very shortly, we will know about the USFDA approval for our first non-hormonal postmenopausal drug, and depending on that, we will plan for our regulatory strategy over here.
We are working on the indication expansion for Finerenone — it was approved initially in India for diabetic kidney disease. It is being reviewed by USFDA for another indication — heart failure with preserved ejection fraction where therapeutic options with the doctors are low. As soon as we get the USFDA approval, this product will have the indication for India as well.
Another important drug, Nubeqa, for prostate cancer, is being reviewed by the USFDA for expanded indication for doublet therapy. Once approved, , we’ll be expanding the indication for Nubeqa as well. So the next six months are quite packed for us.