Posted: 2009-03-09 23:57 Health Watch  Presenter: Jane van Renen Guest(s): Brian Daniel - Click here to listen to the interview Summit TV speaks to Pfizer South Africa chief executive Brian Daniel about the way ahead for the local subsidiary of the international pharmaceutical research and manufacturing giant Jane van Renen: Welcome to Health Watch. The world’s largest research-based pharmaceutical company Pfizer has been in South Africa since 1954. Brian, you’ve just returned from Asia and Australia - welcome back to South Africa. We are glad to hear you’re supporting the South African cricket team. To start can you paint us a picture of Pfizer globally? We know Pfizer has been battling with revenues - we’ve heard talk of taking over ethicals and generic drug-maker Wyeth, and there’s talk of shedding about 19,000 jobs and closing five factories - from an investor’s point of view is this a sign of creating efficiencies, or is this a sign that Pfizer is perhaps in trouble? Brian Daniel: I would say maybe looking at efficiencies what Pfizer globally has done - and wouldn’t like to talk too much on the point because the whole deal hasn’t been ratified yet - Pfizer has set seven objectives in looking at trying to acquire a company. They’ve had a look at various other companies - but Wyeth will be the best fit for Pfizer. Looking forward though as you know we’ve had a number of big blockbusters - which have been our revenue base - but basically we’re now trying to move away from that model to expand into other therapeutic areas, and make sure as we move forward that we do have a larger breadth of products or therapeutic areas that we can work within, and also make sure that we don’t have any single component that makes up a large part of our revenue. Jane van Renen: You mentioned Lipitor being an example of where a patent is coming up in 2011. Pfizer has been known as a very innovative company - hence a product such as Lipitor - but I think what’s been suggested is an interest in a company such as Wyeth will be an opportunity to spread its eggs across different baskets. There’s also been some restructuring with Pfizer globally - how has that impacted Pfizer South Africa? Brian Daniel: Locally everyone is really excited about this. To go back one step when I arrived here in June 2008 we went through an exercise at Pfizer South Africa actually having a look at what our purpose is here. We got most of the company involved and we came up with a new vision in living our full potential and striving for a healthier South Africa. The idea behind that was to rather focus on more people access to our medicines - we know there’s around four million people in South Africa that don’t have ideal access to our medicines. That is something that we are working towards. The exciting part of the restructure that occurred towards the end of 2008 is that South Africa has know been included in what we refer to as the emerging market business units. What’s exciting about that is there’s 70 countries from around the globe - including places like Eastern Europe, Latin America, obviously Africa and the Middle East - that have now been included in this group, and although there’s a lot of cultural and language differences what you will find is the 70 countries share a common theme in the issues we face in trying to deal with the healthcare systems in order to give more people access to our medicines. I guess from my side it’s been very exciting that we were almost one step ahead of the game - in that Pfizer South Africa identified what we should be focusing on is giving people better access to medicines. What flowed on nicely from that - not to say we had an influence on that at all - is the fact that we are now in this emerging markets business unit. Jane van Renen: What are some of the potholes facing you now in South Africa? The Medicines Control Council can be quite frustrating in terms of registration of drugs... Brian Daniel: We welcome the fact that the MCC has actually identified that’s an issue. I must admit that having recently been appointed as the chairman of Innovative Medicines South Africa (IMSA) I’m now getting more involved in discussions with the MCC with this regard. It forms a really nice environment to work with - so we are not in a hostile environment where we have a government that is denying some shortcomings in the system. We welcome the fact that the government has recognised this and my colleagues and I at IMSA are working very closely now trying to see if we can help the government resolve this dilemma. Jane van Renen: I believe you’re trying to maintain the R1billion annual revenue figure - how are you going to be structuring this in terms of your ethicals and the generics market? Brian Daniel: A good question. I’d like to re-phrase that slightly. You mentioned revenues of R1 billion but talking on behalf of everyone who works at Pfizer South Africa we would rather try and work to our full potential as I mentioned earlier to see how we can work with different stakeholders and the government to try and see if we can improve the healthcare system for all South Africans - by doing this we believe the revenues will flow. I guess from an emotional or passion point of view that’s the way that we feel we should drive the business. Your point whether we should be driving the branded ethical products or the generics - we are very fortunate at Pfizer South Africa to be the only market within Pfizer globally that actually has a generic company. Through Pharmacia we then make available original generics that we have within Pfizer. Jane van Renen: Can you give us an example of the different categories that you’re going to be focusing heavily on in the next few years here in South Africa? Brian Daniel: Obviously areas like HIV. That’s important to us - obviously it’s a big issue within South Africa - and then so is TB. On the HIV issue I don’t know if many people are aware but since 2000 Pfizer has had what we call a Diflucan project that’s been implemented and is ongoing. Since the year 2000 we’ve actually given away close to R5billion worth of Diflucan. Diflucan is used in HIV patients who as you well know their immune system has been suppressed and they tend to get fungal infections - so through that programme we’ve actually given free medication to the government to use in the HIV area. Oncology is another area that Pfizer globally is paying a lot of attention to - which will obviously filter through to South Africa. www.summit.co.za Transcripts: 082 962 2772 kvd/tr/met Comments Related to this transcript: Comment on this transcript... Name : Email : Comments :