2024-07-28 04:18:20
I haven’t seen the face of college
Both the brothers had come to Delhi, but the financial condition of the family was not good. Somehow they passed 10th and 12th class. After that, instead of going to college, they thought of doing some business. At first, they shortlisted paan shop and juice shop. But the business of wholesale sale of medicines appealed to them. Then with the help of family savings and some relatives, they opened a small shop of 55X55 feet in Bhagirathi Palace, a wholesale market of medicines near Chandni Chowk in Delhi.
30 years passed in a rented house
Sanjeev Jain, the elder brother of this family, tells that father had come to Delhi from Rohtak in 1961 itself. But he used to live in a rented house. Father’s income was not much, so he could not build his own house. But he kept saving little by little. With this money, he was able to build his own house in 1991. But it took 30 years to build it. Till then, life was spent in rented houses.
The drug store is running
Sanjeev Jain says that his medicine shop started doing well. But at that time there was a huge shortage of medicines in the market. The way the population was increasing in the country, the manufacturing of medicines was not increasing at the same rate. Every year, malaria outbreak starts during the rainy season. But its medicine is not available at that time. It had to be stocked from April itself. If we asked the manufacturer, he would tell us that there is not that much manufacturing capacity. Active pharma ingredients or API are available in the market but there are no tablets or capsules.
The idea of building a factory came from the shop itself
When the season came, there would be a shortage of medicines in the shop. There was a shortage of medicines for malaria, TB, even medicines for fever and body ache. One day I asked the proprietor of a big pharmaceutical company why don’t you increase the capacity, to which he said you set up a factory. Make medicines for us, we will sell them. This is how the idea of setting up a medicine factory came to me. And we started looking for where the factory could be set up. It was decided that medicines would be manufactured on contract. That is, the dream was to become a Pharmaceutical Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization (CDMO).
The first factory was set up in 2004
Sandeep Jain tells that his first factory was set up in Haridwar’s Sidkul. When he bought the plot there, there was no infrastructure. No road, no electricity, no telephone. Before setting up the factory, he built a road of about 80 meters from the road so that the material truck could reach the factory. The same was the condition of the means of communication. An investment of Rs 1.17 lakh was made in setting up the factory. All the savings were spent here. Now the problem arose of working capital. For this, he mortgaged his house to the bank. This arranged for the working capital.
never looked back again
Once the factory started, there was no looking back. From one plant to two plants, then three, four, five… Today the company has 15 facilities. Out of these, 12 make medicines and three make active pharma ingredients i.e. API. Everything from tablets, capsules to injections, vials, tubed ointments etc. are made in their factories. Jain says that at present 18,000 types of SKUs are worked on in their factories. The number of their clients is in the range of 1500. Out of the top 30 pharmaceutical companies of the country, 26 are their clients.
When I threw my mobile phone in the air…
By then mobile phones had arrived but there was no tower in SIDCUL. Hence mobile phones did not work in the factory. One day an idea came to me to type a message and send it and then throw the mobile in the air. If there is a signal above, the message will be sent. This idea worked. The message was sent as soon as the mobile was thrown in the air. After this, an iron tower was built in the factory campus. By climbing it, messages could be exchanged from mobile phones and one could also talk. This solved the communication problem.
Family came to Delhi from Rohtak
In 1961, the Jain family came to Delhi from Rohtak, Haryana. To run the household, the head of the family worked in a private company. He worked in many companies but could not build a house of his own. The two sons of the family did not study further after 12th. They opened a wholesale shop to sell medicines. But this shop gave them everything. Money to buy a house and also the idea to open a medicine company. Yes, we are talking about Sanjeev Jain and Sandeep Jain, the promoters and managing directors of Akms Drugs and Pharmaceuticals Limited.
Their client list is very long
Talking about the list of clients, he says that you will get tired of counting them. Akms does contract manufacturing for all Indian and foreign companies. These include names like Abbott, Albert David, Alembic, Aristo, Bayer, Cadila, Cipla, Dabur, Emcure, Days, Dr. Reddy’s, Proctor & Gamble, Sun Pharma, Piramal Healthcare, Zydus Cadila, Jubilant Pharma, Ipca, Glenmark, Intas etc.
Largest in the country, second in the world
Sandeep Jain says that at present Akms Drugs and Pharmaceuticals Limited is the largest pharmaceutical contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) in the country. Not only this, in this field only one company is bigger than it in the world. That is Switzerland’s Lonza Group. After this comes Akms. At present 16,000 people are getting employment in all its facilities. Out of these 7,000 are permanent employees while 9,000 are outsourced.