A geek and a yoga guru, a budding entrepreneur and a blind chess master who knows when to make a move. Karnataka Today brings you M R Saktiya Narayanan, chief executive officer, Sun Bio IT Solutions Private Limited, his entrepreneurial venture.
From dabbling in dairy farming to his new-found love in servicing pharma companies, Saktiya equally spends his time and energy on yoga. The quest for new opportunities and cashing in on them betrays the strategic mind of an erstwhile Bangalore University chess champion. Saktiya knows when and how to make a “move” in the mosaic of his life too. Below are excerpts from his interview with Karnataka Today:
Q:When and what led you to take the entrepreneurial plunge?
Ans: I started in the year 2012. Basically my strong domain expertise lead to the thought of starting on my own. There were not many IT companies working on this domain (pharma) as it required in-depth knowledge about the industry and newcomers were not entertained by the customers because of US FDA’s stringent procedural guidelines. My exposure with Eli Lilly and Johnson & Johnson helped me to acquire domain knowledge. If the systems do not comply, it leads to the cancellation of customers’ licences. So while there was a lot of scepticism about new IT solution vendors, it opened up a new world of opportunity for me.
Q: What are the challenges you face as a start-up?
Ans: Two things: attracting the right talent as that requires good infrastructure and reputation. The second is finance.
Q: Tell us a little about what your company does?
Ans: Sun Bio is a specialized pharmaceutical IT company catering to CRAMS/generic pharmaceutical companies/academia across the globe. In India, we are the first company in this space catering to CROs/CRAMs assisting the scientist in the drug discovery process. We have implemented our applications successfully at Thermo Fisher, Aurigene, Bengaluru and Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories in Hyderabad.
We offer the following solutions to our clients:Compound Library System, Chem Invent System, Lab Ticketing System, ELN and Jonty. In short, we help pharma companies in their inventory management system, lab automation system and drug discovery system that overall improves the operational efficiency.
Q: Tell us about the difficult path that you had to negotiate during your entrepreneurial journey. Do you regret taking entrepreneurial journey?
Ans: It was not an easy take-off. I went through difficult times but did not regret. For those who want to take this path, I would suggest: Check whether the concept is unique and not easily reproducible. Two: Find the right ally if not be on your own. Third: Fine grain the concept before putting into action. And finally, do a proper market study.
Q: What are the other verticals that you have diversified into? Can you explain in detail about the upgrading of Microsoft application?
Ans: Strategizing and re-strategizing is very important in any business and this needs to happen on a regular basis. Lack of finance is a constant strain for any start-up business. When I started Sun Bio, we were only focusing on IT pharma products. Products are like planting teakwood trees and it takes some time to get the returns. That was the time I wanted to get into IT services that I thought will provide immediate returns.
Cloud is a happening business and we got into MS SQL Server database services. We are an authorized vendor of Microsoft and we provided MS SQL Server SME’s who provide consultancy services to Infosys and Cognizant.
Q: What are the challenges you are seeing in pharma start-ups? How does your company help big pharma companies in helping address those challenges?
Ans: Entry barrier is little challenging as pharma companies do not want to take risks in providing opportunities to those who have not dealt with the sector in the past. Sales cycle is little longer with pharmaceutical companies than we see in other sectors. Even big pharma companies lack basic system in place and there is definitely huge potential.
(This article was published in the recent issue of Karnataka Today Magazine)
