Our priority is to access more patients — we need to adjust prices accordingly: Joaquin Duato

Our priority is to access more patients — we need to adjust prices accordingly: Joaquin Duato

Joaquin Duato is global chairman of Janssen, the pharmaceutical arm of healthcare major Johnson & Johnson (J&J). The fastest growing top 10 company in the world and India’s fastest growing MNC, Janssen’s recent revenues hit $24.3 billion, the company lining up several medicine launches in India. Speaking exclusively with Rupali Mukherjee , Duato discussed strategies for growth in India, navigating local needs and pricing structures — and his view of India’s intellectual property rights scenario:

J&J set up here in 1957. Are you satisfied with the company’s growth? What are your strategies to increase activity in the Indian market?

We believe that the stream of new products we are planning to launch may address unmet medical needs. Some medicines we have are particularly relevant to the Indian situation — the one for tuberculosis is the first medication for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis approved in the last 40 years. We’re in the process of registration and discussions with the Indian government to accelerate its approval.

Our plan is to focus on communicable diseases, like tuberculosis or hepatitis C, and to be able to get these new medicines approved here. Right now, medicines for severe rheumatoid arthritis, Hepatitis C and diabetes are in the pipeline to be rolled out.

You’ve shown promising growth recently but other MNCs, like Glaxo-SmithKline and Pfizer, are growing even faster — will you be able to come out on top in terms of future sales?

In June, Janssen became the fastest growing MNC in India, growing at 12.3% — globally, we are the fastest growing top 10 company in the world. Our growth in the second quarter in the pharmaceutical sector was very strong at 20%. That’s the result of this particularly rich set of new products, 11 new drugs, we’ve launched in the last five years.

Our future is going to be very dependent on being able to develop new medicines in areas where there is a real medical need. We are focussing on oncology, infectious diseases like tuberculosis, mental health problems like schizophrenia or global epidemics like diabetes.

Gaining access into healthcare, particularly medicines, is a challenge in India, pricing being a block — would you, like other MNCs, adopt a tiered-pricing structure here?

Our prices vary across the world, in particular, when we’re talking about communicable diseases endemic in certain countries which have limited resources in healthcare — we need to adjust our prices to that situation because the priority is to access more patients. So that would be the general principle for India too.

We’ve already done that in India with an oncology drug launched last year.

What is your view of India’s intellectual property rights situation?

For an innovation-based industry, intellectual property is at the cornerstone of our ability to be able to invest in innovation. It’s important to have companies that invest in new therapies that bring new medicines to the market — valid IP protection is central to innovation.

There have been developments that have been a concern for companies regarding IP protection in India in the past — but we also see that the situation has normalised and it’s improving.