Saurabh Gurnurkar has been with UQUIFA since 2015. In his current role as Managing Director, he is responsible for executing business turnarounds and creating value through M&A, in addition to enhancing customer satisfaction.

Saurabh is a qualified Mechanical Engineer with an MBA degree. Prior to entering the Fine Chemistry business at UQUIFA, he spent 9 years working in Investment Management.

Inherent expertise

Highlights from our discussion with Saurabh Gurnurkar, Managing Director at UQUIFA Sciences SLU.

Inherent expertise

Considering the ongoing innovation in production technologies, evolving pipelines of small molecule products, and the increasing demand for such drug candidates, the pharmaceutical contract manufacturing market is likely to witness positive growth in the coming years.

Saurabh believes that the CDMO segment remains fragmented, featuring a mix of start-ups, mid-sized firms and established players. However, the inherent expertise of any CMOs and CDMOs should enable a reduction in time-to-market, significant cost-benefits, and access to larger production capacities and novel technologies.

Creating robust supply

Being embedded in a critical sector, the level of interest across both business segments of CDMO and off-patent APIs was consistent during the COVID pandemic, with no downturn in demand at UQUIFA.

However, supply chain volatility has been a problem across the industry, and UQUIFA experienced particular challenges across its locations in Europe and North America.  “We have made the choice to qualify newer suppliers for key feedstock, as well re-look at stock levels for products with a regular manufacturing outlook,” says Saurabh. “Despite newer measures, we have had situations of dealing with downtime in certain cases due to lack of product.  We believe this challenging period has also offered us the opportunity to re-assess our sourcing more closely and move pro-actively in building more options for the critical raw materials in our matrix.”

Saurabh believes that the exercise has made UQUIFA’s supply chains hardier and more robust over the longer term.  In addition, it is his view that European companies like UQUIFA are in a good position to benefit from the positive trends of re-shoring supply chains of critical drug substance and drug product manufacture to the continent.

Optimizing operations

Last month (February 2022), UQUIFA divested the Lliçà de Vall production site in Spain. This divestment was part of a strategic objective of further building UQUIFA’s presence in custom synthesis and manufacture from the Group’s GMP sites in Spain, Hungary and Mexico.

“The site we divested was serving the off-patent API segment for us,” explains Saurabh. “It has now found a committed owner with an investment plan to realise its full potential.”   

This divestment will help UQUIFA to optimize operations in Spain, and it better aligns with the changing needs of the Group’s customers. UQUIFA will continue to invest in its development capabilities and people resources, to serve its global customer base more efficiently.

Geopolitical issues

When asked whether recent geopolitical issues, such as the conflict in Ukraine, are likely to affect operations, Saurabh acknowledged that it is likely that these events will have some impact.

“The unfortunate events in the CEE region have meant that energy expenses have risen multi-fold in the past few weeks at our European sites,” he noted. “While our site teams take up initiatives to reduce energy consumption, the results will take time.”

With such scenarios, it seems inevitable that product pricing across the industry will need to adjust to new realities, coupled with local inflationary measures. This is perhaps not the ideal way to emerge from the COVID pandemic, but the expertise of the sector will surely prevail and overcome these challenges, making sure that much-needed medicines continue to be manufactured and delivered to patients across the world.