The Vinod Gupta School of Management, IIT Kharagpur recently had the privilege of hosting Mr. Mubarak Naqvi, Senior Director, Medical & Regulatory Affairs, Sanofi. Mr. Naqvi is currently responsible for leading medical, regulatory, clinical research and market access teams in India and South Asia. He also has extensive experience in clinical development with special focus on project management. He has been associated with designing as well as leading multi-center, global clinical trials in the United States, India and Eastern Europe.
Mr. Naqvi spoke on a very interesting topic tied with the dynamics of the pharmaceuticals industry - 'How research translates to breakthrough ideas, and how these ideas eventually translate to molecules and drugs'. Through his highly engaging talk, he outlined with a great deal of clarity as to how unmet medical needs are met and new therapies reach patients. He started his interaction with the students by introducing himself and his professional journey so far. He explained how business is driven by science and facts. He then provided the students with an insight on pharmacy and biotechnology, and the various Research & Development activities in the Medical field. He was extremely enthusiastic about the various technological advances in the industry and its immense impact on everyday life.
Towards the middle of his talk, he introduced his audience to terms such as patent period, chemical modules which helped all to grasp the differences between branded generic and generic drugs. The session was a perfect amalgamation of the medical industry and the business world. He discussed the impact of cost on quality and how it differs as one moves from patented towards generic drugs. Innovation was another area that picked Mr Naqvi’s interest, and as an illustration, he shared a story of how an idea became a life-saving drug where he cited the example of the implementation of IBM Watson in oncology. He enlightened the audience about the laws related to medicine as well as the clinical trial process - an extremely crucial aspect of the pharmaceuticals industry.
Mr Naqvi acquainted the audience about Sanofi and how it uses an integrated approach and targets patients, not the disease. He shared his vision of future where medicine would be revolutionised by nano robots. He also shared some interesting tidbits about how a major chunk of patients do not take medicine on time. The discussion then moved on to how wearable devices could be the next major area to witness the merger of medicine and technology. In fact, smart phone according to Mr. Naqvi and rightly so, was perhaps the greatest innovation of the contemporary era, that could potentially affect every facet of life in a big way . Mr Naqvi believed that it’s a world of change and change is happening quite quickly and hence one must be prepared to face it.
The session ended with a Q&A round which was filled with extensive questions on profitability, pharmacovigilance and its impact on management and technology, importance of ethics in the field of medicine etc to which Mr. Naqvi gladly poured insights and registered new curiosities and interests.