Arjun Juneja: Reformulating Mankind Pharma's business

 
When Arjun Juneja joined the family business at Mankind Pharma, it wasn’t a cakewalk for him. “For the first month or two, everything was going over my head,” says Juneja, 31, who is now director of operations at the pharma company. He dreamt of becoming a cricketer, but extreme competition prompted Haryana’s state-level cricketer to give entrepreneurship a shot. He joined his father, Ramesh, chairman of Mankind Pharma, and uncle Rajeev, CEO of the company, in early 2009 when he was just 23.

Initially, Juneja—who has an MBA from the University of Strathclyde in the UK—was put through the paces across departments. Over the years, his involvement has helped speed up a change in strategy for the company.

Monika Sood, co-founder & partner at Arete Advisors and leader of the health care practice, says: “Arjun has leveraged his education, global outlook and understanding of operations to drive high growth at the company.”

“The focus changed from marketing to manufacturing,” says Ramesh. As much as 70 percent of Mankind’s products are now manufactured in-house as against 30 percent in 2010. Its flagship products include Manforce, Prega News and HealthOk. “Going forward, I want to revamp the OTC section too,” says Juneja.

Juneja now wants to revamp mankind’s OTC section