Alembic & Alembic Pharma

Hi Ashwin,

1. From backward integration, I mean a company manufacturing its own Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (API) for formulations. There are various steps and processes involved in manufacturing the final drug (formulation). You can read more about the basics here – http://www.valuepickr.com/resources/pharma-sector-faq/#respond. From whatever limited knowledge I have, it is better to have forward integration i.e. having own marketing set up for US markets than being backward integrated into APIs as the API cost is hardly anything compared to the overall formulation size. By being forward integrated, a pharma company doesnt have to share profits with the marketer which can be pretty high and can hurt especially in case of a first to file/exclusive products. However, being backward integrated into APIs gives you more control over supply chain especially in case of complex products.