6 minute read
LUCA VISINI
medicines available for the people who needed them.
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Luca Visini, Managing Director, Eli Lilly and Company (India) shares his insights on key market trends, latest initiatives, business outlook and much more. Excerpts of the interview:
MANAGING DIRECTOR, ELI LILLY AND COMPANY (INDIA)
Challenges and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic?
COVID-19 has pushed us into becoming more resilient and responsive. Across the pharma industry, we saw how organizations shifted efficiently to work-fromhome and digitized setting, ensuring continuity in running regular business programs. For six months, all Eli Lilly employees, including medical representatives, worked from home and that did not stop us from innovating and caring for patients. For instance, in 2020, Eli Lilly launched two new products, one for
Key initiatives undertaken by Eli Lilly in India and globally?
Eli Lilly believes in keeping its commitment to making lives better for people around the world. Eli Lilly has been a leader in diabetes management since 1923 when we introduced the first commercially available insulin. This year, we celebrated the 100th year of insulin discovery. Since then, we have been innovating to find therapies and solutions that address the daily challenges faced by patients living with diabetes. As a testament to our continued commitment to helping people living with diabetes, Eli Lilly is expanding its partnership with Life for a Child (LFAC) to reach young people in more than 60 diabetes and the other for oncology using countries, including India, Pakistan, only digital channels. Ethiopia, Tanzania and Bolivia. Since
Safety was of utmost importance be it 2009, Eli Lilly has donated 2.4 million the safety of our employees as well as the vials of insulin to LFAC, which provides safety of health care providers. As an or- access to care, education and life-saving ganization, in addition to ensuring that medicines and supplies to children and we made our employees feel safe in their young people with Type 1 diabetes in dejobs, we worked on helping them balance veloping countries. their work and personal commitments. Over the past few years, we have We honoured all job offers and focused broadened the accessibility of all our on employees’ physical and psychologi- insulins in our endeavour to lessen the cal well-being in this shift to burden of diabetes in India. working from home. Some Through our strategic partof our initiatives include salary advances, ‘Voluntary Friday’ leaves, ergo support and interventions through 280% nerships with Cipla and Lupin for the marketing and distribution of our diabetes medicines, we were able which employees “We witnessed a remarkable to expand access to could seek guidance increase of 280 per cent in the healthcare practitiofor their well-being. number of digital touch-points ners and patients. We also empowered as compared to 2019” While we are one our employees through of the leading compaour ‘We are NOT ALONE! nies in the diabetes seg(WANA)’ campaign to manage ment, we have also taken on both work and personal life expectations. the challenge of fighting some of the
Finally, as a global healthcare com- world’s most debilitating healthcare conpany, we succeeded in maintaining a ditions by providing best-in-class innovasteady supply of our medicines and also tive medicines in therapy areas such as took on the additional responsibility of Oncology and Immunology. With these developing medicines for COVID-19. We products, we also put in place highcontinued to work with key stakehold- quality patient education and support ers, the health care providers, to make programs.
The COVID-19 pandemic brought with it serious challenges, but at Lilly we decided to look at them as opportunities to keep growing, learning, and evolving. As we started working from home, we explored numerous digital channels to connect with our customers and continue to deliver on our purpose. We witnessed a remarkable increase of 280 per cent in the number of digital touchpoints as compared to 2019. As we shifted to working in the digital environment, we saw an increase in digital peer-to-peer interactions by 260 per cent. Our customers felt engaged and appreciated Lilly’s commitment to helping people living with chronic conditions as well as our strong approach towards safety.
Company’s performance financially in the current fiscal year? What are your expectations during FY 2021-22?
High performance with high integrity is our primary belief. Eli Lilly and Company has performed well across the globe during the pandemic and has registered a growth of 10 per cent from the previous financial year. In the coming year, we expect to see continued double-digit growth. care providers on new medicines/indications in therapy areas. This will happen thanks to new launches for medicines/ indications in these areas. We will also leverage our growing ability to use all channels available - digital and traditional.
Which key novel molecules are in the pipeline and what are the disease areas that you intend to target?
At Eli Lilly, we value innovation. The medicines we make are innovative and life-changing. We are currently looking at venturing into newer therapy areas with another innovative product that we expect to launch in 2021. In addition to this, we will also continue to get label updates for new indications on our oncology products. As one of the leading companies in the diabetes space in the Indian market, our focus also remains on bringing innovative products to this segment by 2022-23.
Company’s major plans in the coming year, be it technology adoption or digitization?
We have broadened the digital channels we use and have come up with different formats of communication both inter-
Key factors driving the growth of
Eli Lilly in the Indian market during the next few years?
Eli Lilly’s purpose is to unite caring with discovery to create medicines that make life better for people around the world. In India, our focus is to increase our ability to reach people with unmet needs by sharing scientific data with health nally and externally. In 2021, we expect to see a continuation of the digital trend that started in 2020 and for it to become an integral part of healthcare. Face-toface and digital interactions will co-exist and we will continue to work with a hybrid model, amalgamating digital and face-to-face channels. Keeping employees’ safety in mind, we will also continue to monitor the impact of COVID-19 and accordingly make strategic decisions for employees who visit customers to carry out their work assignments.
Key trends in the diabetes segment? Any innovative solutions that are most awaited in the next few years?
India continues to be a country where the burden of diabetes is increasing rapidly. In India, approximately 77 million people were living with diabetes in 2019. Given the current trends, it is projected that India will have the highest number of patients by 2045. It is also estimated that almost half of these patients could remain undiagnosed. We continue to address this increasing burden through our portfolio of insulins as well as the innovative therapies that we have brought to the market. To address inequity in access to quality diabetes care for many children and young adults around the world, Eli Lilly and Life for a Child (LFAC) are expanding their long-term partnership and shared mission to provide free immediate care as well as build sustainable diabetes care models for vulnerable populations. Eli Lilly India will play an integral role in bringing this strategic partnership to India. The expansion of the LFAC program is part of Eli Lilly’s social impact efforts and supports Eli Lilly’s 30x30, the company’s goal to improve access to quality health care for 30 million people living in settings with limited resources, each year, by 2030.
Investment towards expansion into new territories?
Eli Lilly continues to ensure it focuses on investing in R&D. We have R&D facilities in 8 countries, and we conduct clinical research in more than 55 countries. We invest approximately 25.1 per cent of our sales in R&D, which is above the industry average. We spend US $ 5.6 billion a year on R&D and have over 7,800 of our global employees – that is about 23 per cent of our workforce – engaged in research.
