From scale to science: Ahmedabad’s pharma ecosystem at crossroads 

The Formulation Development and Drug Delivery (FDD) Conclave has become a meeting ground for India’s formulation R&D community. Scientists, innovators, and industry leaders gather to exchange ideas and tackle real challenges in formulation science and drug delivery. However, FR&D is no longer just about getting a molecule to market. It is about how well that molecule scales and whether the formulation holds up under real manufacturing conditions. It is about whether patients actually benefit. So, Express Pharma decided to take the FDD Conclave beyond a single annual event, and into the country’s key pharma hubs. Ahmedabad was a natural stop. The city brings together formulation R&D, manufacturing excellence, and scientific talent in one ecosystem. It is home to leading pharma companies, research centres, CDMOs, and CROs. That combination has helped strengthen India’s position in global pharma markets. The FDD Conclave: Ahmedabad Connect built on that strength. Its theme, Innovation at scale: Advancing FR&D for global markets, set the frame for everything that followed. Ahmedabad already has scale, manufacturing capacity, cost efficiency, a deep base of generic drug production. But, can it also become a city built on innovation, without giving up what made it strong in the first place was the real focus of the event. Rethinking success The conference opened with a panel titled, ‘Are we measuring FR&D success the right way?’ Lakshmipriya Nair, Assistant Editor, Express Pharma, moderated this panel discussion which included other experts like Dr Parva Purohit, Sr VP – R&D, Amneal Pharmaceuticals. Dr Amarender Reddy Donthidi, VP and Head of R&D for Injectables and Ophthalmics, Amneal Pharmaceuticals and Ravikiran Bhabad, Deputy GM – OSD, FTF Pharma, a Shilpa Medicare subsidiary. The conversation moved through several layers of the same question. What actually defines FR&D success today? Is it enough to look at approvals and launches, or does real impact sit somewhere else? Do the KPIs teams actually drive the right behaviours, or do they just reward speed? The experts agreed that speed still matters, but it cannot come at the cost of quality. R&D teams need agility too. Markets shift, regulations change and teams have to keep up. The panel’s larger point was about scope. Success is not just a launch. It runs from early development through to manufacturing. A weak link anywhere in that chain puts patient safety at risk. That reframing had a practical implication. If FR&D outcomes are meant to link to business growth, the scorecard used to judge them has to change too. A metric built only around timelines will miss whether a product actually scales, or whether it holds up once it leaves the lab. The panel’s conclusion was clear. The FR&D scorecard of the future needs to weigh manufacturability, quality, and downstream performance alongside speed, not treat them as separate conversations. The formulation toolbox The discussion was followed by a few informative technical sessions. Jaynil Doshi, Director – Techno Commercial, Pioma Chemicals, gave a session titled Hydrocel: Multi-functional cellulose technologies for modern formulators. Hydrocel is a family of six functional cellulose excipients, sold under one brand. Doshi’s point was about control. Hydrocel is built for tighter parameters than standard pharmacopeial ranges allow. That control lowers development risk. It also makes manufacturing more predictable. Krutik Prajapati, Manager (Techno Commercial), Vikram Thermo, followed with a presentation on ‘Drug release modulation through DRUGCOAT RSPO/RLPO’. He introduced DRUGCOAT RL and RS polymers, used as binding agents to modulate release. Prajapati explained that drug release depends on polymer concentration. The right RL-to-RS ratio has to match the drug’s own solubility and permeability. Every product needs its own answer. Beyond generics Dr Ajay Jaysingh Khopade, Site Head R&D and VP, Head of Formulation and Analytical R&D, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries, took the discussion in a different direction with a session titled, ‘Beyond generics: Creating a competitive edge through innovation’. Volume is no longer enough, he said. India’s generics strength built the industry’s global position. But the next phase needs more. Complex formulations and specialty products carry stronger margins and a harder-to-copy edge. Khopade named three things that have to work together, i.e. product innovation, process excellence, and regulatory strategy. He added a caution too. Innovation only counts if it improves patient outcomes. Science for its own sake is not the goal. Moving beyond generics is a long-term bet and the returns take time. Proven technology, new roles Not every advance means replacing what already works. Dr Abhijit Gothoskar, Technical Expert, Sigachi Industries, made that case in Matrix formulation using Ultramod systems. Hydrophilic matrix systems, he said, remain a proven, commercially viable route to controlled drug release. The company’s UltraMod system, he said, improves their robustness and predictability. Gothoskar’s session also pointed to a shift in what formulators expect from suppliers. It is no longer just about buying an excipient. Companies want formulation support and application expertise alongside it. Sigachi is positioning itself as that kind of partner. Delivery as differentiation  Ritu Laddha, Senior VP and Cluster Head, Zydus Lifesciences, closed the morning’s technical sessions with ‘Reimagining pain therapy: Oral-to-intranasal product innovation’, a case study on drug delivery.  Zydus developed an intranasal version of cyclobenzaprine, a pain medicine usually taken orally. The goal was faster relief. Preclinical and human studies backed that up. They showed faster absorption and higher drug exposure through the nasal route. Laddha framed the result on three fronts i.e. efficacy, tolerability, and patent potential. Her presentation showcased how changing the route of administration can create a new proposition around an existing molecule. AI in the formulation lab After the unconference and lunch, the focus moved to artificial intelligence, with a panel titled, ‘AI, talent and technology: The new FR&D toolkit’. Dr Tushar N Mehta, VP – Respiratory and Advanced Analytical R&D, Amneal Pharmaceuticals, moderated this session. Nilesh Malaviya, Head of Formulation Development, Alembic Pharmaceuticals; Dr Sanju Dhawan, Sr Director GPRD and Site Leader, Baxter Pharmaceuticals India; Dr Dhaval Pethani, Co-Founder and CTO, Cutyx Research; Dr Prabhat Shrivastava, Associate Director and Vertical Head for Formulation and Packaging Development, Piramal Pharma Solutions, Ahmedabad; Dr Vinod Venkatpurwar, Senior GM, Formulation Development, Cadila Pharmaceuticals; Dr Ajay Vairale, Senior GM, Cadila Pharmaceuticals; and Dr Sunny P Desai, Senior Manager and Site Lead for Technology Transfer, Zydus Lifesciences joined him for this discussion. The panel’s central idea was that AI is shifting formulation from trial-and-error toward predict-and-design. It is helping teams shortlist promising formulations faster. It is flagging manufacturing risks earlier and compressing timelines that used to run for months. The panel pointed to high impact use cases such as formulation screening, stability prediction, and early risk-flagging as the areas where AI is already paying off. Digital twins, AI models and electronic lab notebooks came up as the practical tools behind that shift. They can cut scaleup failures, reduce repetitive work and speed up technology transfer. But there was a condition attached. AI is only as good as the data behind it. Without a strong digital foundation, none of it works. Fragmented systems and disconnected data can foil even a well-built model. The panel was candid about the barriers still in the way. They spoke of legacy systems, siloed data, and teams that have not yet been trained to work alongside these tools. Getting past that is as much an organisational challenge as a technical one, pointed out the panelists.  The panel also opined that AI should augment scientists, not replace them. Human judgement and accountability stay central to every decision. Balancing that human expertise with machine intelligence, rather than choosing between them, was the panel’s recurring theme. The panel also emphasised on governance, particularly around ethical use and protecting confidential data. They opined that emerging model is the AI-enabled scientist. Someone who understands both what these tools can do and where their limits sit. Complexity moves closer to the patient Dr Richa Dayaramani, Scientist Grade F, NIPER Ahmedabad, spoke about injectables and specialty formulations later in the afternoon, in a session titled Injectables and specialty formulations: Driving the next wave of growth.  Biologics and GLP-1 therapies are growing. That growth demands stronger capability in advanced drug delivery and injectable technology, she said. Formulation itself is becoming the differentiator. The more complex it gets, the more value there is to capture.  Dayaramani also brought the discussion back to the patient. Future formulations need to support self-administration, through devices like pre-filled syringes and wearable injectors. That means formulation, device compatibility, and manufacturing all need to work together. None of it succeeds in isolation. Ahmedabad’s own opportunity The last panel of the day was a session titled Ahmedabad’s innovation edge: Where science meets scale.  Naresh Kumar Gaur, Consultant, Pharma Manufacturing Operations, moderated this discussion. The panel included Dr Madhusudhan Bommagani, President – FR&D, Cadila Pharmaceuticals; Dr Mukesh Patel, MD, QualiHeal Pharmaceuticals; Anshu Rathore, AVP – Pharma and Regulatory, Molkem Labs; Gopal Thakur, Senior Manager, Immacule Life Sciences; Abhikumar Turakhiya, Senior GM and Head of Formulation R&D, Avance Research and Dr Kashyap Nagariya, Assistant Division Head, Otsuka Pharmaceutical India. The discussion opened with Ahmedabad’s role in India’s broader pharma growth story, then narrowed to specifics. The city’s advantages came up first. A large pool of skilled talent from pharmacy universities across Ahmedabad and Gujarat. Strong local technical and digital support. A growing base of CMOs and CDMOs, which brings opportunities for technology transfer and faster market access. Governmentbacked skill-development programmes reinforcing all of it. The panel treated manufacturing strength as a starting point, not an end point. The real question was how to leverage that strength to accelerate innovation. They also discussed how building development capabilities that can compete globally was the next test for the city’s pharma ecosystem. Complex products and specialty therapies came up as the clearest opening. Biologics, advanced delivery systems, and value-added formulations offer margins and differentiation that conventional generics cannot match. The city already has adjacent capability in manufacturing and talent. What it needs is to direct more of that capability toward development rather than production alone. The panelists were emphatic that Ahmedabad needs to move beyond conventional generics. Complex products, biologics, and value-added offerings are crucial to the next phase of growth. Manufacturing strength is not enough on its own. Quality has to keep pace. That combination, the panel said, will decide whether Ahmedabad becomes a genuine global pharma hub. The panel closed on an open question rather than a clear answer. What comes next for Ahmedabad as a pharma innovation hub depends on whether the ecosystem i.e. talent, manufacturers, CDMOs, and regulators, can pull in the same direction. What the day added up to A strong FR&D organisation today has to deliver products that are innovative, manufacturable, scalable and relevant to patients. That takes earlier attention to scale-up, wider use of data and AI, more sophisticated delivery approaches and tighter coordination between R&D, manufacturing and regulatory teams. For Ahmedabad, the pieces are largely in place. Talent, manufacturing scale, technical capability, a growing ecosystem. The task now is to connect them.    lakshmipriya.nair@expressindia.com laxmipriyanair@gmail.com    The post From scale to science: Ahmedabad’s pharma ecosystem at crossroads  appeared first on Express Pharma.