Profile: Joshi chases global pharma dream

Janaki Joshi came to Australia in 1992 with a single vision: exploit her qualifications as a management accountant and provide for her family. As it happens, things didn’t quite work out that way.

Her company, Iris Interactive, now has representation in the European Union, the United States and India, and was awarded a 2010 Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA) Inspiration Award for the “best of the best” in ICT Australian innovation.

“When I came to Australia I was working for Boots Pharmaceuticals as a management accountant,” recalls Ms Joshi. “I realised that the teams there had no software to control how the drugs were developed and marketed - essentially they were flying by the seat of their pants. I thought that I could do something about it.”

Iris Interactive provides software to help pharmaceutical and biotech companies facilitate collaboration between colleagues, and in doing so break down silos of development work that typically arise as new therapeutic molecules are created.

Ms Joshi left Boots to start her company in the bedroom of her home. It’s a classic “garage” tale, where one person has a technology vision, quits their job, finds some capital and starts building something they truly believe in.

“People thought that I was crazy for taking on something like this,” Ms Joshi tells eHealthspace.org from her office in New Jersey, where the company bases its US representation. “But we have succeeded in our goal, which is to bring life-saving medicines to patients faster. That’s what gets us all out of bed in the morning.”

Iris Interactive has 15 staff in Australia, along with the US representation, and 300 people at a centre in India. However, most of the core software development is still done in Australia.

“Our goal is to help the pharmas bring their products to market faster,” she said. “Developing new molecules is a process that can take a decade, and many things can go wrong along the way. We try to help the companies move around some of those road-blocks.”

Iris Interactive has a number of big pharma partners, including Novartis, with whom it has had a ten-year long relationship. It also works with other big companies such as Pfizer, Wyeth and Roche.

“We could not have got to where we are without our partners in Australia,” Ms Joshi said. “We have representation overseas, and our desire is to see our company go global. Our ultimate goal is to help patients, and we can do that by assisting companies to bring their products to market faster.”

She also wants to stake a claim in the burgeoning biotech market. Iris’ product works just as well within the biotech circles as it does in the conventional pharma industries.

“We want to connect biotech and pharma,” she said. “Because that’s where the real innovation is occurring today.”