With new developments in the pharmaceutical industry—including the implementation of the Mexico City Principles (MCP)—and the growing importance of emerging markets like the Philippines to trade and investment, the BusinessMirror has thought proper to interview Sanofi Senior Vice President for Asia Jean-Luc Lowinski to know his views and get a glimpse of how a global leader, like Sanofi, is positioning itself in the midst of advancements in the medical field.
Here is the excerpt of the Q&A with Lowinski, who holds a PhD in Veterinary Science from the University of Nantes, France, and is an Institut Européen d’Administration des Affaires (Insead) graduate:
Aside from Sanofi’s presence in developed countries, the company is also investing in emerging markets. What is the strategic importance of the emerging markets to Sanofi?
Countries throughout the emerging markets, including the Philippines, have immense growth potential for Sanofi. This is driven by an expanding middle class, increasing urbanization and greater overall investment in health care.
With around 70 percent of the world’s population, Sanofi is a health-care leader in these markets with sales of around €11B in 2014. We are excited about the opportunity to dramatically improve the health and well-being of the people in the developing world through innovation and we will continue to work hard to serve their health-care needs.
How do you plan to sustain this leadership position?
Leadership is built on innovation. This is true for both established and emerging markets. Through our innovative vaccines, medicine and solutions, we help address the health-care needs of real patients in the real world. We recognize that health-care needs continuously evolve, and we are committed to innovating to adapt to these needs. Sanofi will potentially launch up to six new products in 2015 alone, and approximately one new product every six months between 2016 and 2018.
The other part of the equation is access. As a health-care leader, we have a responsibility to collaborate with our industry peers and local governments to improve access to quality health care. This is particularly important to emerging markets.
The marketing strategies in the pharmaceutical industry have drastically changed over the years. How is Sanofi adopting to these changes?
We continue to significantly transform the group to be focused on improving access to quality health care and meet unmet needs, but also on delivering the sustainable growth required to allow us to continue to invest in innovative research and developments (R&D). Our ambition is to offer an integrated set of businesses within the healthcare space with opportunities to create synergies across activities, both upstream and at an R&D level and downstream in the market place.
R&D has always been, and will continue to be, the cornerstone of our company. The advancements in science mean that more targeted, more effective treatments are within reach and we are ready to take on this challenge.
The changing face of the industry, healthcare needs and scientific discovery led us to the realization that we need to diversify to grow the business. We need to look outside at partnerships and acquisitions to succeed in delivering future innovative solutions. We have been successful in searching out the best science and the best companies to acquire and partner with. We have strongly reinforced our business in particular areas, such as diabetes, oncology, rare diseases and consumer health care. We will continue to look for opportunities and partner with the best, whomever and wherever they may be.
The successful companies of tomorrow are those that go beyond delivering products to delivering real solutions and services. We have identified and delivered on our growth objectives and continue to undergo a deep organizational transformation. This has included a complete restructure of R&D, the expansion of our footprint in biotechnology through the acquisition of Genzyme and refocused regional and global operations to be ready to meet the next challenge and opportunity around the corner.
In connection to integrity, the Philippines is in the process of adopting MCP. How will this affect the promotion/marketing practices of pharma companies?
The Philippines is expected to be one of the first countries to implement the “Mexico City Principles (MCP) for Voluntary Codes of Business Ethics for the Biopharmaceutical Sector” which was first endorsed during the 19th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) Economic Leaders Meeting in Hawaii.
Sanofi supports this completely and we are absolutely convinced that higher ethical standards in the pharmaceutical sector will ensure a level playing field that benefits everyone: beginning with patients, doctors and health-care professionals, as well as our own employees.
I will be speaking precisely on this critical issue during the Pharmaceutical Compliance Congress and Best Practices Forum happening on August 17 in Manila and look forward to a productive conversation that helps patients both here in the Philippines and all throughout the world. The APEC Biopharmaceutical Sector Workshop happening on August 19 and 20, which I am also participating in, is an equally important opportunity to highlight the importance of business ethics particularly in the biopharmaceutical industry.
And how will the adoption of this law benefit the Filipino patients?
Adoption of the MCP highlights the strong commitment of the Philippine government to promote a whole-of-society approach to integrity that will ultimately benefit Filipino patients. Ethical relationships are crucial to the country’s mission of developing and making quality medicines available for everyone.
We strongly support efforts to encourage greater local support for/compliance with ethical marketing practices. It is critical for us in the health-care industry to protect the independence of decisions taken by health-care professionals in prescribing medicines to their patients. Ethical promotion ensures that a) health-care professionals have access to information they need; b) patients have access to medicines they need; and c) medicines are prescribed and used in a manner that provides maximum health-care benefit to patients.
Ultimately, we are all focused on patient welfare and safety. The MCP are perfectly consistent with this objective.