6 minute read
DAI HAYWARD
maceutical company in Hyderabad. We have deepened our relationship with that company and we have established new relationships with companies in Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad.
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What is the amount you are planning to invest in India?
We cannot divulge the exact amount but it would be sufficient for the conduct of business properly. We will be investing in laboratories, people who will run them and an additional team for marketing. We have investments in supply chain partners who have been very reliable and we are happy with them.
What will be the key activities of this laboratory?
The laboratory will help the local customers with their formulation challenges. For example, making lipid nanoparticles, liposomes, vaccines and gene therapy treatments. We will demonstrate our technologies and work with the Indian customers in the Indian market in an Indian laboratory. Our homegrown technology solutions are very much fitting with the Make in India call by the Prime Minister of India.
Dai Hayward, Chief Executive Officer, Micropore Technologies Ltd shares his insights on the Indian subsidiary focus, India investment, and new technologies. Excerpts of the interview:
Micropore Technologies is in the process of establishing its subsidiary in India. What will be the focus of the Indian subsidiary?
Micropore Technologies is all about precision formulations. We have the technology for doing that which we have already introduced to the Indian market about 4-5 years ago. And with the growth of business in India, we felt it important to establish a subsidiary here. We have registered in Hyderabad and are going through the final formalities of setting it up including obtaining our GST registration. We are very close to doing business directly between the Indian customers and our own company in India. We plan to make available all our technologies and products including enhanced formulations available to the entire Indian market. The plan will be to roll it out slowly over a while. We already have been doing business with the pharmaceutical and agrochemical sectors.
In terms of manpower, how many people are you planning to recruit
When in 2021, are you planning to set up this subsidiary and when should it be operational? Any timelines? As soon as we will “We have deepened our relationship with that company and we have also established new relationships with companies in Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad” in your R&D lab? We will probably recruit three to four experts in the next 12 months and depending on the success, I shall expect it to grow rapidly after that. finish the registration for GST and similar other Do Micropore Techprocesses, everything will be nologies offer a new operational and ready to roll. crystallization process principally tar-
geted at API manufacturers who are
In 2018, you have done your first working to restore APIs from China? sale to a pharmaceutical company How will this technology help Indian in India. How has been your journey to companies?
date and how is the Indian company per- The technology we have allows one to forming? produce crystals of the right size with The sale we made in 2018 was to a phar- minimal downstream processing and no
jack milling. There are two benefits, first is that it is an efficient process and you get the product you want. The second is that because you are not subjecting API to high energy and low jack milling, we can give morphology consistency that API manufacturers won’t. It happens to be a continuous process, so it is a very efficient high-volume process.
According to you which product technologies from Micropore would be relevant for the Indian market and why?
We see that there are two areas that I mentioned earlier as well. First is the drug product area where injectable, long-lasting sustained-release drugs are formulated in India. It includes not only micron size materials such as PLGA, biodegradable polymers but also nano-scale materials, liposomes and lipo-nanoparticles. India also has big potential, particularly the last ones. We are looking at collaborating with a couple of companies in India in these areas. Second is the drug substance, and that’s the API crystallization story where we can improve and enhance the process including its efficiency and productivity while at the same time improving the final product. Therefore, we can bring significant contributions to India in terms of improvements in R&D.
In 2019, you have closed series A funding with pound 1.5 million? When do you plan to go for the next round and what will be the focus?
We are planning for the next round of funding at the moment. We are looking for 2.5 million pounds and expect to raise this funding during the second half of the year. We already have interest from several investors and obviously, I would be interested in hearing if any Indian company would be doing that as well. The purpose is to make the product more widely available, provide more support across the globe and to enhance the Indian business as we see a lot of growth potential of our market in India. I have been a regular visitor to India, the first being in 1987. And I have always enjoyed doing business in India. I have great respect for Indian scientists and manufacturers. They are constantly innovating and pushing the boundaries and that fits our philosophy as well. I think that there is a big opportunity for collaboration.
How has your company performed during FY2020?
Despite the pandemic, we grew by 50 per cent and we increased our workforce by nearly 100 per cent. So, it was quite good.
How do you see Micropore’s business landscape in FY 2021?
The business has started well and I would expect it to continue that way as we are getting more recognized across the globe and particularly in India where we are establishing an on the ground team. The purpose of the funds is that we can robustly support our growth.
Other than India, which are the other geographies that you are focusing on?
We have an office in the United States since 2009 but it has been always a sales subsidiary rather than a standalone presence. The plan is to have a standalone presence, exactly as in India, to have a full-fledged laboratory and staff to serve the local market locally. We are also expanding into Japan. Our growth in Europe is through the United Kingdom and that’s going great.
Are you satisfied with the performance in the last 10 years? How do you look at the big picture in the next 10 years?
I am not satisfied with our performance in the last 10 years as we should have planned well. The biggest challenge that needs to be overcome is to turn the old technology into more robust and scalable for use by the manufacturers. Since we began doing that at the beginning of 2018 and we witnessed encouraging growth. In the context of the Indian market, the main opportunity is the interface with more Indian companies to get us and our technologies understood and collaborate.
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