Madhukar Tanna: Creating High Quality Generics

Meet Madhukar Tanna, the CEO of Dubai-based Pharmax Pharmaceuticals FZ-LLC, who often says, his story and the story of Pharmax is serendipitous. Madhukar Tanna has been with Pharmax since its inception and he has been an integral part of the start-up process, overseeing the building of a new creation of a great lab, and recruitment of key professionals. He was given a mandate by the shareholders to create an organization that can produce and commercialize very high-quality pharmaceutical products for the MENA region.

“It was an amazing journey of learning new industry, meeting like-minded people, develop a strong, dedicated, trained and motivated people to achieve the organization.”– Madhukar recollects. Today he has created Pharmax with the help of his teams and partners. Currently, the organization has almost 100 workers, who are working day in and out to ensure the best quality products.

Under Madhukar’s strong leadership, Pharmax has articulated a robust business plan that will develop the strong pipeline of products that is required in the region. MENA region is one of the fastest-growing regions for pharmaceuticals, which provides tremendous opportunities to produce and market broadly diversified products to suit a diversified patient population.

Responsibility Comes First

Pharmax strives to reduce all types of waste by identifying and eliminating wasteful practices. It also strives to minimize the risk associated with all its processes to eliminate any chance of accidents. Under Madhukar’s leadership, the firm employs effective emergency response procedures to minimize the severity of impacts in case of accidents affecting the environment, health, and safety of employees.

Greatest Accomplishments

Madhukar Tanna believes, the greatest achievement for any pharmaceutical company is to have the highest regulatory approval, and his young and motivated team achieved EU approval for GMP standards in 2019 and UAE MOHAP GMP certification in 2019. Besides, the firm has successfully launched several market-leading brands that physicians and patients trust in the treatment of broad chronic medical conditions.

The firm has also built a state-of-the-art facility, which is majorly equipped with European equipment thus meeting the stringent quality norms of UAE, the US, and Europe. The facility has an annual capacity of 250 million for tablets and 87 million for capsules per shift.

The secret of a Leader

Madhukar Tanna says, “First and foremost is to have “Curiosity in all aspects of business which allows you to learn from what is going in the world.” He then adds, “Secondly, have complete honesty and integrity in not only what you say, but what you do and third, there are no short cuts in anything, one has to slog, struggle, face the difficulties but if you are one Team supporting the objectives, anything is possible.”

He believes, it is the people who make an organization not any other way around and especially for the SME sector, work around people and not the processes.

Madhukar Tanna also believes it’s normal to have several challenges while creating anything new, a new organization, new products, or new partnerships.

Future Roadmap

For Madhukar Tanna, organizations are like live human beings made of people and systems. With the technological development, he would like to explore the opportunity to collaborate globally, bring the ideas and people closer and execute it faster.

Madhukar Tanna also plans to continue identifying opportunities in different therapeutic areas, develop the local capabilities that do not exist, attract the right talent pool to execute in a timely fashion. He sees a lot of potential in the MENA region, which can help to expand local manufacturing capabilities.

When it comes to personal journey, at this point Madhukar Tanna is satisfied where he is versus when he started his journey. There are still many productive years left in his professional career, as he says, it’s all about serendipity. There is no specific vision that has been defined. Madhukar is driven by new opportunities created around him and the world that he lives in.

“In order to control the situation and achieve the ultimate goal, one has to have holistic understanding, what is the ultimate goal of the organization, give and take approach and ability to identify a specific problem to resolve.”

Suggestions for Upcoming Entrepreneurs

When we asked about characteristics that every leader should possess Madhukar says, “Although it may sound like cliché, one cannot achieve anything without having trusted team members.” He adds, “If you can’t motivate them, and can’t earn their trust, then you can’t achieve. So, I would say, empathy and the ability to inspire people you work with is perhaps the best quality that leader must possess.”