Karan Sehgal
Close to three years ago, Optel Group, a Canadian company, set up its plant in Verna Industrial Estate. Keeping in line with the company’s tradition, not much fuss was made of its brand new facility in Goa. However, what was interesting and heartening to note for anyone concerned with Goa’s industrial progress was that the Verna facility was the first plant of Optel Group in Asia-Pacific (APAC) region.
Optel Group makes systems, which work at the heart of the packaging of pharmaceutical products. These systems check whether a product being packed is the right one or not. In case it is not and it goes unchecked, then it can be risky to the patient’s health.
Over the years, they have also diversified into systems, which spot counterfeit products, saving lives all around the world and also saving the reputation of pharma companies. So, what made Optel Group choose Goa for its plant?
Shaunak Dave, chief executive officer (CEO), Optel Group (Asia), said, “We find Goan employees much better in skill and attitude. We find right kind of engineers in the State from fields like mechanical, electronics and IT. 86% of our employees in at our Goa plant are Goans. If you employ people from outside of Goa, there is always a worry of attrition.”
Talking further about his company, Dave said, “When we started 30 years ago in Quebec, we began with manufacturing vision inspection systems for the pharmaceutical industry. Suppose you buy a pack of medicine from a pharmacy. It will be a big mistake if you find that it has a wrong medicine when you open the packet.”
Product integrity is very important because a wrong medicine can harm a patient’s health. Sensing this opportunity, Optel Group started providing high-speed inspection systems, which can be integrated with pharma packaging lines to check product integrity so that the right product goes into the right packaging to ensure patients’ safety.
In the year 2000, the Government of California came out with a law to fight with counterfeit products.
As a result, Optel Group diversified and came out with serialisation and global track and trace technology to combat with the counterfeit industry.
Dave informed that Optel Group has more than 25% market share in systems, which detect counterfeit products. He also told an interesting story about what led Indian authorities to make it mandatory for pharma companies in exports to invest in systems designed to detect counterfeit products.
He said, “In 2009, in a country in Africa, it was found that a bad pharma product was being sold as
‘Made in India’. Further investigations revealed that the product was made in another country, but was labelled ‘Made in India’ just to sell it in Africa.”
Given that India is one of the major exporters of pharma products, it was important for the Indian
Government to come out with regulations to ensure only products made in India are labelled so and also tackle the menace of counterfeit products.
Dave said, “To protect the brand image of India as a pharma manufacturer, the DGFT (Directorate
General of Foreign Trade) came out with regulations, which made it mandatory for all pharma companies into exports to have 2-D matrix systems.”
Optel Group manufactures ‘Carton Print and Inspection System’, which prints on a carton’s flap critical information like the serial number of a pharma product in 2-D data-matrix code. Every product, which has gone through a system, has a unique serial number, which helps in tracking it and ensuring that it is genuine.
Such systems are really important because in developing markets 10 to 15 per cent of overall pharma products are counterfeits. The rate of counterfeits in underdeveloped markets like in Africa can be as high as 20-30 per cent.
Optel Group makes such high-tech advanced systems and sells them to some of the biggest pharma
manufacturers of the world. Its Goa plant has recently shipped systems to Japan, which is the highest quality demanding market in the world.
Apart from that, the plant is also supplying systems to China, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, Bangladesh, etc. Young Goan engineers and executives can gain a lot of knowledge and experience by working in a company like Optel Group. Besides, the company has employee-friendly policies. Dave informed that maintaining health is an important factor in the assessment of employees at his company. He said, “If you have better BMI (body mass index), you stand a better chance to get a good rating. We also invite a famous fitness coach and a dietitian to talk to our employees to make them more health aware”. The 42,000 square feet facility of Optel Group in Verna Industrial Estate is cutting edge in technology.
Moreover, the company has employee-friendly policies, which would rate among the best corporate practices.
The fact that an MNC like this has successfully set up its operations in the State and employing mostly locals is the best endorsement for Goa as an investment destination for companies around the world.
