Reimagining digital value creation at Inventia Healthcare: From core systems to intelligent, secure operations

As the pharma sector navigates increasing regulatory complexity, global market demands, and rising cyber risks, digital transformation has emerged as a critical lever for sustainable growth. At Inventia Healthcare, technology is no longer viewed as a back-office function but as a strategic driver of operational excellence, scalability, and innovation. In an exclusive interview, Sanjay Nandavadekar, VP & Head – IT, Inventia Healthcare, shares how the organisation is building a robust digital foundation, leveraging data and emerging technologies, and embedding cybersecurity and compliance-by-design to support the company’s ambitious growth plans under private equity ownership.

Inventia Healthcare operates at the intersection of global pharmaceutical manufacturing and innovation-led drug delivery platforms. The company is serving regulated and semi-regulated markets across geographies including the US, Canada, Brazil, Bangladesh, and other international regions. With a strong focus on oral solid dosage formulations, Inventia has built deep expertise across manufacturing, R&D, and regulatory submissions.

The company operates a large manufacturing facility in Ambarnath, near Mumbai, supported by an R&D centre in Thane and a corporate office in Goregaon, Mumbai. With a trained workforce spanning manufacturing, research, and corporate functions, Inventia plays a critical role in global pharmaceutical supply chains.

A significant milestone in Inventia’s journey came in 2024, when the company was acquired by US-based private equity firm Platinum Equity, marking its first pharmaceutical portfolio investment in India. This transition ushered in a new phase of transformation, with a renewed focus on scalability, operational transparency, and data-driven decision-making.

“As we are now part of a private equity portfolio, the aspirations are to grow rapidly in the next few years,” says Sanjay Nandavadekar, Head IT at Inventia Healthcare. “A new leadership team has come on board, and we are looking at the business with completely different lenses, largely through a data and digital lens.”

Aligning IT strategy with core business objectives

For Nandavadekar, the starting point of any digital journey is strategic alignment. In a highly specialised manufacturing environment like pharmaceuticals, IT cannot operate in silos or pursue technology adoption for its own sake.

“The business strategy and IT strategy cannot be two different strategies altogether,” he explains. “Here at Inventia, IT strategy is absolutely coupled with the core mission of value-added oral solid formulations. The focus is not on deploying systems, it is on creating measurable business value.”

Historically, the pharmaceutical industry has been perceived as a laggard in technology adoption, largely due to stringent regulatory requirements. However, this narrative has shifted significantly over the last five to six years.

“Regulators and organisations realised that without digitalisation, it is impossible to reach the levels of efficiency and agility that other industries have achieved,” notes Nandavadekar. “Compliance is no longer a barrier, it is an enabler when implemented correctly.”

Drawing from experience across multiple industries, he highlights how the pharma sector has benefitted from technology maturity developed in sectors like the BFSI and automotive manufacturing, allowing faster and more confident adoption of proven digital solutions.

Building a strong digital core with SAP S/4HANA

Inventia’s digital transformation is anchored by a modern SAP S/4HANA-based ERP backbone that has been live for several years, making the company an early adopter of S/4HANA. This platform functions as the system of record, enabling secure, scalable operations and real-time data availability.

“SAP S/4HANA has given us a stable digital core that is secure, scalable, and capable of generating real-time data,” states Nandavadekar. “This stability allows us to think beyond transactional efficiency and move toward intelligent decision-making.”

With the core firmly in place, the company has reached a critical inflection point, transitioning from system deployment to data utilisation. The focus has shifted toward extracting actionable insights that support both strategic and operational decisions.

“We are now in a phase where we want to collate, churn, and analyse data meaningfully to create dashboards and insights that help management and operations teams take faster, better decisions,” he adds.

Phase two: creating an enterprise-wide data fabric

While SAP provides the foundation, Nandavadekar emphasises that isolated data cannot drive enterprise-wide transformation. Inventia’s next phase of digital evolution centres on building a data fabric that cuts across functional silos.

“Unless I have a fabric that connects supply chain, R&D, portfolio management, manufacturing, HR, and finance, data in isolation will not help the business,” he explains.

The objective is to integrate data from SAP with manufacturing execution systems, HR platforms, and financial models to create a unified, digital view of operations. This approach ensures that every process is digitally enabled, standardised, and harmonised.

“Digitalisation mandates streamlined and harmonised operations. Once all processes are digital, we can correlate data across functions and even correlate how different operations impact each other,” points out Nandavadekar.

This integrated platform also lays the groundwork for future capabilities such as predictive analytics and scenario modeling, enabling Inventia to anticipate challenges and opportunities rather than react to them.

Measuring ROI in a private equity environment

In a private equity–backed organisation, every investment is closely scrutinised for business impact. Inventia has adopted a rigorous, KPI-driven approach to measuring returns on digital initiatives, wherein every initiative is tagged with defined KPIs, a clear outcome, and a measurable business rationale, and this is a prerequisite for embarking on any digital initiative.

Unlike traditional IT-led projects, the company follows a joint ownership model, where business and IT leaders share responsibility for outcomes. This governance model has helped the organisation consistently deliver on its digital commitments, with plans to further raise the bar in the coming years.

“Our projects are collectively owned by business and IT,” he says. “That means shared accountability, shared success, and even shared failures. There is no finger-pointing, only collective ownership.”

Applying AI where it delivers immediate value

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are integral to Inventia’s digital roadmap, but with a clear focus on pragmatism over hype. Rather than deploying AI as a broad, monolithic initiative, the organisation targets specific, high-impact use cases. Currently, the strongest ROI is being realised in operational AI, particularly in areas such as document consolidation, verification, and review.

“I am not a fan of implementing AI as a big layer across the organisation and then waiting two to five years for outcomes. By the time you do that, AI itself would have changed. Operational AI gives you very quick returns. We are already using AI to consolidate documents, building analytics, and identify insights that would otherwise be humanly impossible to process at scale,” explains Nandavadekar.

In parallel, Inventia is laying the foundation for AI-driven R&D, evaluating tools that can accelerate formulation development and regulatory submissions while protecting institutional knowledge. Once that is in place, AI can significantly expedite formulation and analytics without compromising compliance.

Cybersecurity as a board-level priority

With expanding digital footprints across cloud, IoT, and global operations, cybersecurity has become a mission-critical priority for Inventia. Nandavadekar describes cybersecurity as an “iceberg,” where visible threats represent only a fraction of the risk landscape.

“In the pharmaceutical world, cybersecurity is not just about hackers, it is often a national-level activity. India is emerging as a global pharma hub, and that makes us a strategic target.”

Recognising this reality, cybersecurity forms part of the organisation’s broader information technology and governance practices. Policies, controls, and oversight mechanisms are maintained to support the management of systems and information assets. Monitoring and risk assessment activities are undertaken as part of routine operations, with technology environments periodically adjusted in accordance with organisational and regulatory considerations.

Moreover, regular cybersecurity awareness campaigns, phishing simulations, and governance mechanisms further reinforce the company’s security posture.

Embedding cyber resilience through people and processes

Beyond technology, Inventia places strong emphasis on human-centric cybersecurity. Nandavadekar firmly believes that users remain the weakest and most critical link in the security chain.

“If users are not aware of the impact of a cyber incident, everything else goes for a toss,” he says.

To address this, the company has implemented innovative awareness initiatives, including role-based access controls, data classification, and even street shows conducted during company gatherings to demystify cybersecurity concepts.

The organisation also focuses on preparedness through disaster recovery planning, business continuity management, and tabletop exercises, simulating real-world cyber incidents.

“No organisation is immune to cyberattacks,” Nandavadekar notes. “What matters is how quickly you can return to business operations.”

Compliance-by-design in a GxP-regulated environment

Operating in a highly regulated GxP environment, Inventia treats compliance not as a constraint but as a strategic advantage.

“Compliance is a blessing in disguise,” says Nandavadekar. “When your systems are validated, risks are documented, and auditability is built in, you inherently strengthen security and data integrity.”

While compliance requirements may slow initial deployment, he argues that, over time, validated systems deliver faster and more reliable outcomes compared to non-GxP implementations.

“In the end, both GxP and non-GxP systems reach similar timelines but compliance gives you confidence that what you have deployed meets the highest standards,” he explains.

Bridging the digital talent and culture gap

Technology, Nandavadekar believes, is rarely the hardest part of transformation. Culture and mindset are. While technology can be deployed anytime, building a digital culture takes sustained effort.

Inventia has taken a structured approach to understanding digital literacy levels, providing targeted training, and clearly demonstrating how digital tools enhance efficiency without compromising compliance.

“Most importantly, do not behave like a technology person, rather act like a business leader,” Nandavadekar emphasises. “I see myself as a business leader who happens to work in IT.”

By shifting ownership of digital initiatives to business teams, the company has seen higher adoption, stronger accountability, and better outcomes.

Future-ready pharma enterprise

Inventia Healthcare’s digital journey reflects a clear philosophy – start with a strong core, build intelligent layers incrementally, and never lose sight of business value. With a data-first mindset, targeted AI adoption, robust cybersecurity, and compliance-by-design, the organisation is positioning itself for sustained growth in an increasingly competitive global pharmaceutical landscape.

As Nandavadekar puts it, “The role of IT is no longer to support the business, it is to shape how the business grows, scales, and competes in the future.”