Bimal Mehta is the 3rd generation to run the family printing business. His company, Vakils Premedia, offers pharmaceutical companies a unique service to ensure that pharmaceutical packaging for brands is created according to the correct standards for the country of release. Ensuring regulatory compliance of labelling and resource allocation, the company is the most awarded company in India for excellence with good reason.

Vakils is an unusual name. Does it have special significance?

Vakil & Sons is our parent company. Our family originally came from South Africa. In 1901, my great grandfather had immigrated to South Africa and started his career as Mahatma Gandhi’s private assistant. In 1949, our family moved back to India, and bought an existing printing company called Vakil & Sons. It was a recognized brand name at that time, so we retained the original name.

In the 1950s, we pioneered the greeting card industry in India. A lot of people associated greeting cards with Vakils and it became a household name. Thus, when we set up Vakils Premedia, we believed that the established brand name of Vakils would add value to the new business. Besides being the operating head of Vakils Premedia, I am also involved in managing the printing business. I started my career in 1993, after graduating from the Boston University School of Management, and I am the third generation in the business.

Where are your offices based?

We are headquartered in Mumbai, India and we are also in the process of setting up a smaller production office in New Delhi. We have branch offices in the United States and UK for sales and customer support.

You're a global provider of artwork and management services for Pharmaceutical and Medicinal packaging. What exactly does that mean?

Vakils Premedia offers a complete suite of artwork management solutions for the Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Industries. We manage the artwork from the start of the creative process right through the final delivery of the print ready file.

Our end-to-end solutions cover the areas of:      

• Design and creation
• Adaptation of new and existing packs – to different versions and countries packs
• Translation and proof reading in multiple languages
• Regulatory compliance for labeling
• 3D versioning and mock-ups

The core of our services is the adaptation of artwork into different languages and product categories. In most cases, the design may be done by a design agency. We take those templates and adapt the packaging accordingly to different versions. Our final deliverables are print ready files.

Our experienced pharma teams comprise of creative designers, expert graphic and quality control specialists and dedicated project managers who ensure total understanding of the specific requirements for the pharmaceutical industry. Our teams have knowledge of the relevant legislations including MHRA, EMEA and US FDA. We work closely with the companies' internal departments, their local affiliates, and translation agencies.

Pharma is a broad industry. In which markets do your customers work?

Absolutely everything! It's the entire spectrum of the pharmaceutical industry - anything that requires a package. There's no difference between an OTC and a prescription drug because it still has to be sold in a box and has product information inside. We cover all of that. Therefore, we work across the entire spectrum of pharma companies. Our client base is brand owners rather than CMO. This could be either generic, formulation or OTC product.

We have long-term partnerships with pharmaceutical companies. Over the last 8 years, we have created over 200,000 artworks.

Many companies have diversified and become stronger entities because of the credit crunch of the last years. How has Vakils Premedia diversified its offering?

Pharma artwork services are one of our service offerings. Besides the artwork packaging pharma business, we offer mobile app & web development, premedia services (such as typesetting, image manipulation, ePublishing and data conversions) and software development and financial conversion services. We have also partnered with a UK firm to market electronic board portals to Indian companies.

We are diversified in the breadth of services that we offer. Almost 90% of our revenues are generated from overseas customers. Of which, pharmaceutical artwork development is a very big focus. 50% of our revenue is generated from this activity. It used to be almost 70%, two years ago.  On account of our diversification strategy, this percentage has reduced. While the percentage has reduced, it's not that the business has gotten less; it's that other areas are also growing. We see tremendous growth opportunities in mobile content development, and we are hoping this business would be another big revenue contributor in the years to come.  

As an organization, we are ISO 27001:2013, OHAS 18001: 2007 and GMP certified. By November 2016, we would also obtain the ISO 9001:2008 certification.  Those certifications help define and document procedures to improve consistency of product. It also helps us to monitor and measure quality.

How does Vakils Premedia ensure that it stands out from other companies which offer a similar service?

Vakils Premedia is founded on the strong credentials of its 70+ year parent company, who have been pioneers in print and publishing industry. We are committed to quality.

At Vakils, we strive to do the right thing, the first time. Since 2008, we have created over 200,000 artworks for the pharmaceutical industry. Our multi-language capability – we can handle all European languages, Asian, Arabic and Indian languages; robust IT systems, meticulous SOPs for all our production processes and finally our fail-proof disaster recovery protocols ensures accurate print ready artworks. We have deployed Esko Web Centre, which is a powerful web based workflow platform and manages the entire artwork lifecycle. This system connects all stakeholders in the artwork creation process to ensure seamless coordination.

Our regulatory compliances service and significant cost savings stand out from other companies that offer similar services.

We also have a dedicated team that supports regulatory compliance of labeling. We manage pre and post submission of FDA and EMEA compliance. Our team does a complete quality and content checks to ensure that they meet regulatory compliance requirements.

Moreover, there are significant cost savings compared to US or European service providers, as well as company in-house costs. We're told that we are about 50-60% cheaper. We have the ability to scale up at reasonably short notices. For example, if a company makes an acquisition and requires rebranding immediately, we can make resources available either on a temporary or permanent basis. We've got the resources to handle both short term and long-term volume surges.

At Vakils, you work to very tight project delivery schedules. How are you able to do that?

Firstly we have deployed the best software solutions to ensure significant automation and high productivity. Secondly, as part of our quality process, we have implemented digital proof reading. Besides ensuring accuracy, it also helps reducing turnaround times.  Our communication and workflow systems have also automated our production process to a large extent.

We have multiple teams and they are all cross-trained, and are pharma experts in artwork production. If need be, we can move one team to another area. Usually they are dedicated to a customer but we have the flexibility, and when necessary, we can also work on weekends. Most of our clients don't have "crazy" deadlines, but there are some "emergency situations" so we are able to align ourselves to our customer deadlines.