A partnership that survives the first quotation

Most “strategic partnerships” in Indian pharma begin as a forwarded message. Someone knows a plant near Baddi. Someone else has a brand that needs a line. The two sides swap a rate list, argue lightly about credit, and then both get busy with something that already has a purchase order attached. Three weeks later nobody can remember who was supposed to send the licence copy.

The Pharma Partners Private Limited works in that stretch, the one after the introduction and before anything is signed. Business development, in this trade, is not a pipeline full of the word “interested”. Interested is a mood. A partnership is a dosage form, a territory, a price band, and a person who is allowed to say yes.

Three questions before we put anyone in a room

We ask them every time, including of companies we like.

Does the buyer already have a product permission, or is that still a plan for “after we find the plant”? A plan is allowed. Calling it a permission wastes a month.

Does the plant have free capacity in that dosage form this quarter? “We can do tablets” is not capacity. A compression machine that is booked through December is a different factory from the one in the brochure.

Who signs? There is always a person who forwards messages and a person who can commit a batch. We want the second person on the call, even if they only stay for fifteen minutes.

If those answers are fuzzy, we do not dress the meeting up as a partnership. We send both sides back to get the facts. Some people find this rude. The companies that end up working together usually do not.

What we put on paper

Before the first call we write a one-page brief. What each side makes. Dosage forms. Markets they will not touch, because a silent overlap in the same city is how friendships end. Documents they are willing to share, and documents they are not. After the call we write what was agreed, including what was refused. The note is boring. People open it when memories start to diverge, which they will.

A partnership can be narrow and still be real. Ten products. One state. A year’s supply of one API, with a second source named in case the first source slips. We will not inflate that into a joint venture so that it sounds larger in a meeting. The work of this company is to get the arrangement to a size both sides can keep.

The partnerships we will not force

We will not introduce a company that cannot show a basic licence. We will not shop one side’s price to five others and call it a negotiation. We will not stay on a thread where one party wants the other party’s customer list “just to understand the market”.

If you have a plant, a brand, or a product list, and the last three introductions died after the quotation, write to info@thepharmapartners.com or call +91 95056 51342. Tell us the dosage form, the market, and the date. We will tell you whether a conversation is worth setting.