Pharma is where big data is one of the key challenges
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Employing more than 3,350 people, the company currently deals with more than 90 global markets. According to its president, the ageing population is good news for the pharmaceutical industry.
Interview was with Vojmir Urlep, M.Sc., President of the Board of Management of Lek, a Sandoz company.
What is the main focus of your development centre and what is the impact at a country level?
We are the biggest development centre within Sandoz and we run almost a third of global development projects for Sandoz. We have four development units in the Slovenian development centre as we deal with development from active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) for both small molecules as well as biosimilar as finished dosage formulations (FDF). We are the leading centre in certain technologies where we have been chosen as a sort of centre of competence and we try to build as many of these as possible because there is so much knowledge and experience in this small Slovenian environment and it would be a pity not to use it.
What is the educational mix at the centre?
We have very highly educational employees, not only in the development centre but also across the organisation. In the development centre we have approximately 42% of graduates which are mostly Masters of Science and PhD's, the vast majority of the rest associates are mostly technicians working in different labs.
How many products are made by Lek and which ones are exported to Sandoz markets?
Our local sales in Slovenia represent less than 10%, so more than 90% of all medicines we manufacture here are exported to the global markets, you will hardly find a product 'Made in Slovenia' in more markets than medicines coming from our plants. Currently we cover more than 90 markets globally and we are looking forward to increasing this structure in the future.
What is Lek's average number of patent applications per year and which drugs prevail?
Last year, we applied and were granted seven patents and in all, we have more than 1,000 patent rights granted globally. If I remember correctly, a few years ago the Slovenian newspaper, Delo, published local statistics where we were by far the best in terms of the number of patents. They cover a variety of areas but wherever we see a possibility for an innovative solution, we go for it. In addition, the Slovenian Chamber of Commerce awarded our innovations and I hope this trend will continue in the future.
How much has Novartis invested in Lek since the company was taken over?
Novartis, since its acquisition of Lek in 2003, has invested more than EUR 1.7bn into the expansion and modernisation of our manufacturing and development capacity. The average investment has been around EUR 130m annually, with 2015 particularly high as we opened our brand new, high-bay warehouse, which was our biggest investment last year in Slovenia. This year we will continue opening some new facilities, mainly in development and manufacturing.
As the head of the Foreign Investors Forum, you recently presented a declaration in which the main objective is to increase FDI in Slovenia from EUR 10.5bn to EUR 15bn within five years. What is the basis for this goal and what are the main challenges to achieving it?
We all know that we need ambitious objectives if we want to move forward and if we want to grow and we know that we want to grow. Currently, Slovenia is not a very attractive business environment for either domestic or for foreign capital and we want to change that. We set this number based on the experiences of those countries which are much more successful in attracting foreign investments than Slovenia. We believe that it can be done but only if the key stakeholders understand what needs to be done and will support it and this includes not only the government but also the trade unions, media and others that play an important role in this society. The key challenges start from the extremely high labour burden (taxation and social contributions), the administrative burdens and some environmental restrictions... I hope and believe that we are able to get together and get EUR 15bn of foreign investment by 2021.
Novartis has partnered with Google as well as some data-management and tech companies - how does digitalisation of medicine drive innovation?
Today, digitalisation is definitely a trend that is reshaping many industries, including pharmaceutical. The pharma industry is one where big data is one of the key challenges to deal with. If we want to develop and produce safe and efficient medicines, we need an enormous amount of data to properly structure, analyse and use for the sake of the patient and it is here that digitalisation plays a key role.
The Novartis participation with Google is focused on eye care where new technologies play a ground-breaking role, using Nano technology to develop extremely small sensors which may monitor the key biologic processes in the human body to give immediate online results to the medical professionals and therefore making our lives completely different than they are today.
The global population is ageing as life expectancy increases, which means that not only demand for healthcare is rising but also the nature of that care is changing. What is your response to this?
The ageing population is good news for the pharmaceutical industry because, if you look at the statistics, the consumption of medicines increases with age - the older we are, the more medicines we take. Now, we therefore need to pay attention to the potential interaction between different medicines because this may be the game stopper as we may do a lot of harm to a patient and the industry must therefore be aware of this and do the necessary studies on how to deal with this. On the other hand, it is not just about disease when we talk about ageing but also about how to make life at old age still have a proper quality. We talk a lot about 'lifestyle' drugs and it is about how to raise the quality of life going beyond the 60s and 70s and so the industry is aware of this and is actively looking at these areas.
You have devoted your career to the pharmaceutical industry. What do you think the challenges in the healthcare system will be over the next 10 years?
The key global challenge is definitely the ageing population and, as has already been mentioned, the older we are the more medicines we need and this is closely linked to the financing of healthcare. This means that we need to find the proper leverage of how to assure access to the essential medicines needed by the ageing population at an affordable cost.