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HEALTHCARE LIFE SCIENCES REVIEW & March 2014 PHILIPPINES LIFESTYLE MATTERS: DIABETES & ONCOLOGY PAGE 12 INTERVIEW WITH : RAUL MANLAPIG, PRINCIPAL MANAGING DIRECTOR, ARUP PAGE 30 FOCUS ON: A BOOM IN BPO PAGE 20 INTERVIEW WITH: DR. ENRIQUE T. ONA, SECRETARY OF HEALTH PAGE 34 PHILHEALTH: A PRIORITY FOR THE AQUINO ADMINISTATION. PAGE 7

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Page 1: Healthcare & Life Sciences Review

MEXICO 2013

HEALTHCARELIFE SCIENCES

REVIEW&

2013

PHARMACEUTICALS: SHAKING UP THE SYSTEM

PAGE 21

CARVING OUT A MEDICAL DEVICE MARKET

PAGE 56

CASE STUDY: SILANES

PAGE 70

CONVERGENCE IN ACTION: FOCUS ON DIABETES

PAGE 82

published in association with

COFEPRIS Revamped

Mikel Arriola, the man who changed an institution and an industry PAGE 18

March 2014PHILIPPINES

LIFESTYLE MATTERS: DIABETES & ONCOLOGY

PAGE 12

INTERVIEW WITH : RAUL MANLAPIG,

PRINCIPAL MANAGING DIRECTOR, ARUP

PAGE 30

FOCUS ON: A BOOM IN BPO

PAGE 20

INTERVIEW WITH: DR. ENRIQUE T. ONA,

SECRETARY OF HEALTHPAGE 34

PHILHEALTH:A PRIORITY FOR THE AQUINO ADMINISTATION. PAGE 7

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PHILIPPINES MARCH. 2014

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PHILIPPINES MARCH. 2014

Acknowledgements

Pharmaboardroom would like to thank

Dr. Enrique T. Ona, Secretary of Health, Mr. Alexander Padilla, President and CEO of PhilHealth, Mr. Kenneth Hartigan-Go,

acting Director FDA Philippines, Teodoro B. Padilla, Executive Director and Reiner W. Gloor, Adviser, Pharmaceutical

and Healthcare Association of the Philippines (PHAP) and Thelma Tobias–Go,

President, The Philippine Chamber of the Pharmaceutical Industry (PCPI) for their

contributions to this report.

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PHILIPPINES MARCH. 2014

This report was prepared by Pharmaboardroom.comProject Director: Koen Liekens Project Coordinators: Alina Manac, Ibtissam SadouniProject Publishers: Julie Avena Contributors: Teddy Lamazere

Graphic Assistance: Omar Rahli, Nisha Albuquerque

CopyrightAll rights reserved. No part of this publication maybe reproduced in any form or by any means, whether electronic, mechanical or otherwise including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system without prior written consent of Focus Reports.While every attempt is made to ensure the accuracy of the information contained in this report, neither Focus Reports nor the authors accept any liabilities for errors and omissions. Opinions expressed in this report are not necessarily those of the authors.

CONTENTS

INTERVIEWS

7 CONNECTING THE DOTS

8 QUANTIFYING THE MARKET

9 HIGH STAKES FOR NEW STAKEHOLDERS

9 MATURE NEIGHBOR DOWN UNDER

10 RELEVANCE: TO BE OR NOT TO BE?

11 CORPORATE CALLING

12 LIFESTYLE MATTERS

13 MABUHAY! NAMASTE!

14 WHAT’S RITE IN A NAME

14 SALES 2 MANUFACTURING

16 EN PRISE!

17 THE RE-TALE: A STORY OF GENERICS

18 MORE GOVERNMENT, MORE PRIVATE

19 PIONEERING HARMONY

20 A BOOM IN BPO

24 Interview with: Gregorio Navarro, Managing Partner & Ceo, Deloitte Philippines27 Interview with: Maria Cristina G. ‘Beng’ Coronel, President, Pointwest

Technologies30 Interview with: Raul Manlapig, Principal Managing Director, Arup, Philippines32 Interview with: Jason Carroll, General Manager, Janssen (Philippines)34 Interview with: Dr. Enrique T. Ona, Secretary Of Health, Department Of Health36 Interview with: Alexander A. Padilla, President & Ceo, Philhealth38 Interview with: Dr. Kenneth Y Hartigan-Go, General Director, Fda40 Interview with: Teodoro B. Padilla & Reiner W. Gloor, Executive Director &

Advisor, Phap 41 Interview with: Thelma Tobias-Go And Ed Ocampo, President Of Pcpi & Vp Of

Scheele Laboratories42 Interview with: Thomas Weigold, Country President And Managing Director,

Novartis44 Interview with: Juanito Luna, Founding President And Ceo, Prosel46 Interview with: A.A. Santillana, Group Chairman & Ceo, Sv More, Philippines

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7Special SponSored Section

pharmaboardroom.com

philippines report

pharmaboardroom.com

FeBrUarY 2014 FOCUS REPORTS S2

The inclusion of healthcare as a priority on the presidential agenda has led to knock-on conse-quences that are being felt across the healthcare value chain in the Philippines. Universal health-

care coverage (UHC) has been cemented, which has led to a shift from branded medicines to generics, leading many players to a strategic repositioning. The most successful players have been those who focused on a strategy that was inclusive of all stakeholders and aligned with the presidential agenda of affordable and accessible healthcare.

Harvest, by Adrian Morales. Credit Julita Geronimo, Globo

Asiatico Enterprises Inc.

Connecting the DotsPhiliPPines:PhiliPPines:

This sponsored supplement was produced by Focus Reports.

Project Director: Koen LiekensProject Coordinators: Alina Manac,

Ibtissam SadouniProject Publishers: Julie AvenaContributors: Teddy LamazereGraphic Assistance: Omar Rahli,

Nisha Albuquerque

For exclusive interviews and more info, please log onto www.pharmaboardroom.comor write to [email protected]

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“When the new administration took over in 2010, our mantra was to include the previously overlooked poorest segment of the population,” says Enrique Ona, secre-tary of health of the Philippines. “Through our Department of Social Welfare, we had identifi ed 5.2 million households -which could include four to fi ve family mem-bers- as part of the poor layer of society. In terms of people, that number comes down to roughly 25 million, or a quarter of the country’s population,” said Ona. Now, the challenge of the Department of Health (DOH) is to address the next layer of society, the so-called ‘near poor’ that are not yet en-rolled in the PhilHealth scheme. “The projected number of fami-lies from this layer is 14.7 million, essentially 58.8 million Filipi-nos, that should be enrolled by the end of 2014,” Ona explains.

Since 2010, the Aquino administration has reached a num-ber of major achievements on the healthcare front. The amend-ment to the National Health Insurance Act, offi cially called Republic Act 10606, was essential in the sense that it made it mandatory for all Filipinos to be covered through the national insurance body PhilHealth. Offi cially, PhilHealth now has en-

rolled 83 percent of the population. “The enrolment rate means that these are people that have come under the health insurance program at one point or another. Whether they can avail of benefi ts is what our cov-erage rate focuses on. Our covered rate is really around 73 to 74 percent,” explains Alexander Padilla, president and CEO of PhilHealth. “Our key priorities remain membership and benefi ts. In line with the

In IMS Health vocabulary, the Philippines would count as a ‘Frontier Market’. Along with Malaysia and Bangladesh, these markets are expected to each have a sales increase of USD 2.7 billion by 2017. For the Philippines, this would mean an approximate doubling in value. Nonetheless, the Philippines ben-efi ts from the strong momentum of the many mar-kets in the Asia-Pacifi c region, driven in large part by macroeconomic growth, rising healthcare spend, and urbanization. Based on the IMS market progno-sis, the CAGR of the Philippines will average around 3.8 percent to 4 percent through 2017, up from the current three percent. Among the factors that are expected to fuel this growth are improvements in healthcare facilities across the country, the contin-ued push for generic medicines and for generics-only pharmacies, and the eventual implementation of UHC, according to IMS Health.

Quantifying the market

Pharmaceutical sales, USD Bn 2.911

Pharmaceutical sales, USD per capita 31

Pharmaceutical sales, % of health expenditure 34.50

Pharmaceutical exports, USD Mn 43.4

Pharmaceutical imports, USD Mn 777.1

Source: IFPMA, 2012; Business Monitor International

Philippines Total Annual Sales Value (ExMNF USD)

2006

Source: IMS MIDAS Data, QTR 1 2011, forecast from Market Program 2011-2015

0

500

1,000

1,500

2,000

2,500

3,000

3,500US$ Bn

2007

2,019

2008 2009 2010 2011(f)

2,2122,449 2,515 2,585 2,703

45.8%46.8%

47.8% 49.3% 49.9% 51.2%

43.8% 42.6% 41.2% 38.4% 37% 35.9%

Branded GenericsOriginator Generics

Unbranded GenericsOther

From left: Dr. Enrique T. Ona, secretary of health; Alexander Padilla, president and CEO of PhilHealth

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FeBrUarY 2014 FOCUS REPORTS S4

President’s desire, we will have each and every Filipino registered as part of PhilHealth. When it comes to health, the political will is certainly there”.

HigH StakeS for New StakeHolderS

To make healthcare affordable, in 2008, the government implemented the Universally Accessible Cheaper and Qual-ity Medicines Act, which included the Maximum Drug Retail

Price (MDRP) scheme. The MDRP called for a 50 percent price reduction on 21 molecules, and introduced some system-atization to drug pricing in the country. It led many multina-tional corporations (MNCs) into a period of negative growth, but those with the right portfolios continued to grow.

The requirement for the industry to deliver relevant prod-ucts is a question of alignment with the needs of the patients,

It may seem natural for execu-tives to move from one Southeast Asian market to the other, be it Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia or the Philippines: these emerging economies share trends, such as moves towards UHC or an in-creased use of generics. In the long run, IMS Health expects them to follow the ‘developed’ markets, some of which –such as Taiwan and Australia— are only a stone’s throw away. The French MNC Servier saw its senior executive Patrick Tete move into a position as managing director of Servier Philippines in early 2013, having previously served as CEO of Servier Australia for over eight years. In an attempt to bet-ter understand the road ahead for the Philippines, PharmaBoardroom asked Tete for a comparison.

Apart from quality issues, counterfeit medicines and corruption, Tete points out that the most strik-ing change was the combination of a low-income market with the absence of reimbursement. “Two thirds of healthcare expenditures in the Philippines are private, while more than 50 percent is out-of-pocket. Filipino households consider medical care as a low priority and close to 45 percent of the aver-age monthly family expenditure goes on food. The majority of Filipinos also barely have any access to health services. Another major difference with Aus-tralia is the fact that we do not see the same types of patients here. In the Philippines, it is all about treating very sick patients. A survey conducted on hypertensive patients indicated that half of those patients already suffered end organ damage, which usually refers to damage occurring in major organs fed by the circulatory system (heart, kidneys, brain, eyes). Filipinos consult doctors, but do so very late,” Tete says.

Mature Neighbor Down Under

Patrick Tete, managing director, Servier

FACT SHEET PHILIPPINES

Per capita total expenditure on health (PPP int. $) 142

Per capita government expenditure on health (PPP int. $) 50

Total expenditure on health as a percentage of gross domestic product 3.61

General government expenditure on health as a percentage of total expenditure on health 35.34

Private expenditure on health as a percentage of total expenditure on health 64.66

General government expenditure on health as a percentage of total government expenditure 7.55

Social security expenditure on health as a percentage of general government expenditure on health 29.67

External resources for health as a percentage of total expenditure on health 1.35

Out-of –pocket expenditure as a percentage of private expenditure on health 83.57

Source: IFPMA, 2012; WHO

Philippines: The 3rd largest market for Servier in Asia

Servier Philippines: Over 30 years of dedicated

service and commitment to healthcare

Servier Foundation is committed to

re-invest all profit into R&D

Every Script for a Servier product

is an Investment to

Medical Research and Education.

SERVIER PHILIPPINES, INC.

#2 Orion corner Mercedes Streets, Bel-Air Village, Makati City Philippines

Tel. Nos. 897-8990 to 97

Fax No. 897-9027

Website: www.servier.com

Life through Discovery

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S5 FOCUS REPORTS FeBrUarY 2014

the government and the country at large. “We have observed a shift with many of the industry’s stakeholders, including sever-al NGOs, now taking a more holistic view beyond drug prices. The sector is now taking a joint approach to define a sustain-able future for the healthcare system as a whole,” says Reiner Gloor, advisor to the Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Associa-tion of the Philippines (PHAP), an industry association largely composed of MNCs. “Now, we have reached a point where we have gained the trust of groups that were traditionally op-posed to ‘big pharma’,” explains PHAP’s executive director Teodoro ‘Ted’ Padilla. “Apart from the NGOs, this includes institutions such as the Department of Health, the local FDA and PhilHealth.”

UHC turned the government from a mere stakeholder into an increasingly important customer, which was particularly beneficial to local manufacturers. “We also have the feeling that the industry has changed,” explains Thelma Tobias-Go, presi-dent of the Philippine Chamber of the Pharmaceutical Industry (PCPI), the leading industry association for Filipino-owned, mostly generic, manufacturers. “President Aquino has pledged to improve healthcare in the country and the Department of Health now has one of the largest budgets in the government. The local industry has faith in President Aquino and wants to try to work with the government as a new customer.”

UHC was a particular attempt to reduce out-of-pocket ex-penditures in the Philippines, which accounted for 54 percent of total healthcare spending in 2010, according to a World Bank report published in 2012.

relevaNce: to be or Not to be?

Survival for most MNCs in the post-MDRP period meant a re-focusing on a few therapeutic areas of the highest unmet medi-cal need. “This means knowing and understanding where your strengths as an organization lie, and what limitations exist due to the local healthcare system at a specific point of time,” says Thomas Weigold, president and managing director of Novartis

From left: Teodoro ‘Ted’ Padilla, executive director, PHAP; Reiner Gloor, advisor, PHAP; Thomas Weigold, president and managing director, Novartis

for Oncology, Nephrology, Specialty Drugs

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Healthcare Philippines, the third largest MNC in the Philippines today. “The Philippines has a high unmet medical need in many different therapeutic areas. But looking at the most relevant ones, hypertension, respiratory, diabetes kill many patients in the Philip-pines, while we have innovative and quality afford-able medicines to manage and control the diseases! In addition several specialty solutions like transplant, cancer treatments or neurological medicines are needed urgently as well,” says Weigold.

“The innovators have to ask themselves: ‘What are we doing to play actively in a relevant space?’” says Beaver Tamesis, president and managing director of MSD Phil-ippines, a company growing in high single digits despite a flat market for MNCs. MSD followed the demographic shift in dis-ease profiles from predominantly infectious diseases to non-com-municable diseases. Apart from diabetes, coronary heart disease and hypertension, vaccines for rotavirus and HPV are high on the agenda. “Even contraception has seen explosive growth of 38 to 40 percent since the controversial Reproductive Health and Responsible Parenthood Act came through,” explains Tamesis. But he also finds relevance beyond portfolios. “We are spending a lot of efforts on patient compliance programs. We have to be seen as partners that are relevant in reducing patient risk and keeping

them out of the hospitals. We have to make sure that the impact on patients improves”, Tamesis concludes.

corporate calliNg

When AstraZeneca’s CEO Pascal Soriot took of-fice late 2012, he set out a strategy relying heavily on emerging markets. He now looks at the Philippines as a source of cautious growth. “In spite of a number of headwinds, we look at the Philippines as a country of large opportunity. There is a large population and a high unmet medical need. And even though economic

growth may have been deceiving in the past, the economy has been growing rapidly for six consecutive quarters now,” says Ga-gan Singh, country president, AstraZeneca Philippines.

“We have decided to stay focused on the innovative brands in the market and are constantly seeking for new launch opportuni-ties both from our HQ as well as in-licensing opportunities. We have strategized ourselves in such a way that enables us to keep the patient at the center of everything we do. At the same time, we are also looking at knowledge partnerships with physicians, developing future therapy areas and market needs, as well as clinical trials tailored to these market needs,” Singh adds. “Over-all, we are buoyant about the space we are playing in. We know

Dr. Beaver R. Tamesis, president & managing director, MSD

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Healthcare Philippines, the third largest MNC in the Philippines today. “The Philippines has a high unmet medical need in many different therapeutic areas. But looking at the most relevant ones, hypertension, respiratory, diabetes kill many patients in the Philip-pines, while we have innovative and quality afford-able medicines to manage and control the diseases! In addition several specialty solutions like transplant, cancer treatments or neurological medicines are needed urgently as well,” says Weigold.

“The innovators have to ask themselves: ‘What are we doing to play actively in a relevant space?’” says Beaver Tamesis, president and managing director of MSD Phil-ippines, a company growing in high single digits despite a flat market for MNCs. MSD followed the demographic shift in dis-ease profiles from predominantly infectious diseases to non-com-municable diseases. Apart from diabetes, coronary heart disease and hypertension, vaccines for rotavirus and HPV are high on the agenda. “Even contraception has seen explosive growth of 38 to 40 percent since the controversial Reproductive Health and Responsible Parenthood Act came through,” explains Tamesis. But he also finds relevance beyond portfolios. “We are spending a lot of efforts on patient compliance programs. We have to be seen as partners that are relevant in reducing patient risk and keeping

them out of the hospitals. We have to make sure that the impact on patients improves”, Tamesis concludes.

corporate calliNg

When AstraZeneca’s CEO Pascal Soriot took of-fice late 2012, he set out a strategy relying heavily on emerging markets. He now looks at the Philippines as a source of cautious growth. “In spite of a number of headwinds, we look at the Philippines as a country of large opportunity. There is a large population and a high unmet medical need. And even though economic

growth may have been deceiving in the past, the economy has been growing rapidly for six consecutive quarters now,” says Ga-gan Singh, country president, AstraZeneca Philippines.

“We have decided to stay focused on the innovative brands in the market and are constantly seeking for new launch opportuni-ties both from our HQ as well as in-licensing opportunities. We have strategized ourselves in such a way that enables us to keep the patient at the center of everything we do. At the same time, we are also looking at knowledge partnerships with physicians, developing future therapy areas and market needs, as well as clinical trials tailored to these market needs,” Singh adds. “Over-all, we are buoyant about the space we are playing in. We know

Dr. Beaver R. Tamesis, president & managing director, MSD

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that our future will be distinctly different from the past, but it will be equally glori-ous as our past has been,” he concludes.

Stephen Saad and Gus Attridge, the executives that run South Africa-based MNC Aspen, Africa’s largest pharma-ceutical company, set up a subsidiary in Metro Manila in 2011, a bold and

aggressive move. “The Philippines is a market where brand equity is flourish-ing even as branded generics make their mark in the local pharmaceutical indus-try,” says Marcelina ‘Ace’ Itchon, presi-dent and CEO of Aspen Philippines. “Both scenarios are opportunities that Aspen can build on. We have the capa-

bility to prolong the lifecycle of selected innovator products and a robust pipe-line of quality and affordable medicines that we can bring into this market in due time.” The audacity of Aspen’s top management to invest in the Philippines as its first foot in Southeast Asian soil has paid off: in just two years, the Phil-

DIABETES 4.3 million Filipinos suf-fer from diabetes and another 6.6 million have pre-diabetes, accord-ing to the estimates of the Inter-national Diabetes Federation. “The main problem is that most people with diabetes do not control their blood sugar very well. Poorly con-trolled diabetes is the leading cause of kidney failure and blindness and the second leading cause of ampu-tations after traffic accidents. It is also associated with increased risk of heart attacks, strokes, dementia and impotence in men,” explains Christine Rosal, country manager Philip-pines for Novo Nordisk, a diabetes focused MNC with its headquarters in Denmark. “More than 10,000 peo-ple each year in the Philippines get end-stage renal disease and each year more than 60,000 people die because of diabetes.”

DOCTOR’S EYE: Increasingly, diabetes patients have been flooding the National Kidney and Transplant Insti-tute (NKTI), the leading transplant institute in Southeast Asia, primarily in kidney transplants. “Whether the kidney failure primarily came from diabetes or from something else has become harder to pinpoint. But the number one cause of end-stage renal disease in the Philippines and this hospital is diabetes,” says Jose Dante Dator, execu-tive director of the NKTI.

ONCOLOGY An estimated three out of every 100 Fili-pino women are expected to contract breast cancer be-fore age 75, the highest incidence rate in Asia. Further 2008 data of the Philippine Cancer Society indicated that 13 out of 100 males and 12 out of 100 females in the Philippines would have had some form of cancer if they would have lived up to age 75.

PharmaBoardroom asked Julie Geronimo about her take on the changing oncology landscape, ever since she set up a niche distribution company, focused on oncology products, roughly two decades ago. “In the 1980s, oncology as a niche area did not yet have the exposure it has today. I started working in this area at

a local company that merged into present-day Hospira. When I tried to find suppliers that could deliver our oncology products, I realized that this market needed a new player that could deliver oncology products more rapidly and in smaller volumes,” Geronimo explains. The supply gap became the raison d’être for Globo Asiatico, where Geronimo is still president and CEO. “The importance of the oncology area has changed. Because of the shift in dispensing from doctors to hospitals and an increased derived demand through new cancer centers, the share of oncology products is on the rise. In the past, for instance, 90 percent of oncology products were being dispensed by doctors, with hospitals only accounting for 10 percent. Today, we see a 50-50 balance between the two,” reveals Geronimo.

DOCTOR’S EYE: The Philippine Cancer Society pinpoints breast and lung cancer as the two leading cancer types in the Philippines today, and their preva-lence is on the rise. “The chief factor for this growth rate is lifestyle. In cancer, 80 percent is lifestyle and the other 20 percent is genetic. Nutrition, exercise, stress can all affect the development of cancer in a person,” said Antonio Villalon, medical oncologist at the St. Luke’s Medical Center, a prestigious tertiary hospi-tal in Metro Manila.

Lifestyle Matters

Christine Marie D. Rosal, country manager, Novo Nordisk

Management team, Globo Asiatico

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At an October 2013 Summit marking the 25th anniversary of the 1988 Generics Act, Health Undersecretary Madeleine Herrera said that five to six out of ten Filipinos now take generic medicine. Traditionally, the majority of these generics has been supplied by Filipino manufacturers. The growing use of generics in a prescription-driven market like the Philippines, however, has brought in a number of big names from abroad. Quite frankly, it was an open invite to the much more expe-rienced branded generics players from the world’s generic powerhouse next door: India.

“Indirectly, the government policy has worked in favor of the Indian companies,” says Sanjay Singh, general manager in the Philippines for Torrent, one of India’s larg-est pharmaceutical companies. “As prices were lowered with the MDRP, it was made clear that even though prices would go down, quality would be maintained. The MDRP helped to eliminate the dilution in the relationship be-tween price and quality. Since most Indian companies used to face the prejudice of bringing in low quality prod-ucts, the perception change due to MDRP mostly benefit-

ted us Indians,” he continues. Currently, Torrent is growing at annual rates of up to 45 percent in the Philippines, a clear sign

that the country has entered the ‘generics era.’ In spite of extensive experience in a domestic market

four times the size of the Philippines’, the Indians are still riding the learning curve as the Philippine pharmaceuti-cal market matures. Though perceptions are changing, some of the most prestigious Philippine hospitals contin-ue to blacklist products manufactured in India. As more and more entrants cement their foothold in the market, a thought-provoking development to follow will be the partnering opportunities. “Looking at the current pace of entry of branded generics players in this market, it is time to pick up on cooperation as part of our strategy. We are now doing the groundwork to establish in-licens-ing alliances in this market,” says Singh. For European, US and Japanese companies with limited portfolios, in particular, the marketing muscle, experience and growing foothold of Indian players can be an attractive proposi-tion to enter the Philippines.

Mabuhay! Namaste!

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ippine subsidiary has grown to 111 employees and counting, and the Philippines is now re-ferred to as the “launch pad” to Asia within the Aspen Group.

wHat’S rite iN a Name

The MDRP did not only leave the MNCs cor-nered in 2008: United Laboratories, the larg-est pharmaceutical company in the Philippines and generics manufacturer, was also affected. But desperate times call for desperate mea-sures, and United Laboratories was forced to experiment with new business models.

Initially, RiteMED, one of United’s sub-sidiaries, followed the same model as any branded generics organization, pricing its products 20 to 70 percent lower than their innovative equivalents, and marketing aggressively through an extensive field force. The 2008 price cut, however, forced the company to follow the MNCs and lower its prices too. The subsidiary soon started losing money. “It was clear that we had to make a drastic turnaround,” admits Jose Ma-ria ‘Joey’ Ochave, senior vice president business development group for United Laboratories.

“We moved all of RiteMED’s medical repre-sentatives to United Laboratories and used the savings generated in three ways: bringing prices down further, a trimedia campaign for brand-ing, and providing additional discounts to drug-stores. Instead of pushing the drugstores or the doctors to give our medicines to the patients, we targeted the patients directly,” explains Ochave. Brand loyalty, as several reports of the market research firm Nielsen indicate, is particularly high in the Philippines and, combined with the limited disposable incomes of the population, means opportunities for branded generics.

SaleS 2 maNufacturiNg

Before the introduction of UHC, most major private hospitals in the Philippines had to rely on imported products. With the MNCs showing only limited interest in small volumes, all too often certain products would never actually make their way to market. It was a situation that skewed market prices upwards, with several critical care companies mar-keting their products at premium prices.

“We identified a gap in the products that were not avail-able or approved by the FDA and only oc-cupied a small mar-ket, and those that were being exclusive-ly marketed by large companies, where the level of competition was low and the prices augmented. We could bring down prices in such niche markets and compete head on with existing large players,” explains J. De Ruyter ‘Toto’ Oroceo, president and general manager of Delex Pharma International (DPI), a Filipino hospital products com-pany. “At the end of the day, we contribute directly to the vision of the president, the Department of Health, the FDA and our current administration to make pharmaceutical products in the Philippines more affordable, so that also the poor layers of soci-ety can be reached.” Since its incorporation in mid-2009, DPI has already grown to a staff of close to 100. “In three to five years, DPI will achieve PHP 1 billion (USD 22.5 million) sales revenue and will have its own manufacturing facility,” hopes Oroceo.

Traditionally, pharmaceutical marketing organizations in the Philippines have partnered with toll manufacturers for their production needs. But many, especially those in rapidly growing niche areas, quietly dream of major investments such as their own manufacturing plant.

From left: Ace Itchon, president and CEO, Aspen Philippines; J. De Ruyter ‘Toto’ Oroceo, president and general manager, Delex Pharma International

Romeo B. Carbonel Jr, president, & Minerva A. Carbonel, chief of operations, RBC-MDC

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Tel. No: (632) 426-0150,

(632) 426-0270, (0632) 426-0271,

Fax No: (632) 376-2885

[email protected],

www.delexpharma.com

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FeBrUarY 2014 FOCUS REPORTS S10

On the vitamins and supplements side, for instance, the SV More Group has grown primarily on the back of its B Complex solutions, while it selectively outsourced its manufacturing. “First of all, we have to be careful in choosing who we manu-facture through,” says Alberto Santillana, group chairman and CEO. “Hizon Laboratories and Lloyd Laboratories, both leading Philippine toll manufacturers, are world-class players. If you work with foreign manufacturers, you have to carefully select to ensure that they work according to quality standards. In India, for example, there are bad manufacturers in the re-gion but also many very good ones. We are prepared to take on South Korean manufacturers, which can be among the best.”

Today, after 25 years, Santillana is part of the group of Filipino entrepreneurs ready to invest in manufacturing. “For these first 25 years, we did not want to take up big loans to fund an investment for manufacturing, which is why we have waited till the point where we have sufficient resources to build our own facilities. Now we have reached the point where we can afford manufacturing without external funding. Self-sufficiency is very important to ensure that the operating cash remains unaffected. In three to five years, we should have completed our first manufacturing facility in collaboration with our Philippine-based manufacturers,” adds Santillana.

Team photo, Delex Pharma International

From left: Jean Paul D. Santillana, vice president - Overall Marketing Office, S.V. More Group of Companies; Alberto Santillana, president & CEO, SV More Group; Albert-Jan Santillana, senior vice president for Real Property Administration, S.V. More Group of Companies

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S11 FOCUS REPORTS FeBrUarY 2014

Top 20 leading philippine pharmaceutical companies based on Value (less V06, V07, A13 & K01)* as of MAT December 2011

Rank Company % CAGR 4–Years

TOTAL PHARMA MARKET 3.06

1 UNITED LAB 5.40

2 PFIZER INC. –3.21

3 GLAXOSMITHKLINE –2.41

4 NOVARTIS 11.18

5 MSD 6.33

6 SANOFI-AVENTIS –4.25

7 ASTRAZENECA –1.07

8 BOEHRINGER INGELHEIM 2.30

9 JOHNSON 3.08

10 PASCUAL LABS 8.92

11 ROCHE PHILIPPINES –2.55

12 NATRAPHARM 9.58

13 ABBOTT LAB –6.50

14 BAYER PHARM –2.04

15 SERVIER PHILS 1.83

16 CATHAY DRUG CO 42.90

17 MERCK INC 5.72

18 INVIDA 1.56

19 GETZ PHARMA 26.87

20 GX INTERNATIONAL –4.32

Top 20 leading philippine pharmaceutical companies based on Counting Units (less V06, V07, A13 & K01)* as of MAT December 2011

Rank Company % CAGR 4–Years

TOTAL PHARMA MARKET 3.16

1 UNITED LAB 3.29

2 GLAXOSMITHKLINE –6.92

3 PFIZER INC –3.46

4 PASCUAL LABS 8.73

5 SANOFI-AVENTIS 0.98

6 ABBOTT LAB 6.81

7 JOHNSON 1.26

8 INTERMED MKTG 2.53

9 TAI SHO PHARM 1.52

10 INTERNATIONAL PHAR 16.71

11 BOEHRINGER INGELHEIM –6.55

12 GX INTERNATIONAL –6.07

13 NOVARTIS 10.10

14 CNN GENERICS 999.00

15 MUNDIPHARMA GMBH –0.46

16 PONDS CHEMICAL –7.66

17 AM-EUROPHARMA CORP 7.90

18 NATRAPHARM 10.17

19 RHEA –2.37

20 MSD –3.52

Source: IMS Health Philippines, Inc. IMSPlus – Combined using Dec 2011 Database. Above excludes sales of V06 – General Nutrients, V07 – Other non-therapeutics, K01 – Intravenous solutions, A13 – Tonics

The investments of local pharma companies shows their level of confidence in the Philippine economy. “In the last three years, only about 40 percent of investments were from foreign inves-tors. This was not the case before, when most Filipinos were investing their money abroad. The changing dynamics imply that the Filipinos have regained confidence in the country, its leadership and its economy,” says Gregorio Navarro, managing partner and CEO of Deloitte Philippines, Navarro Amper & Co.

From an MNC perspective, the Philippines is now indeed solely considered for marketing and sales activity. There is, how-ever, one remaining MNC manufacturing in the country. “Our facility in Cainta (a municipality in the Rizal province, just next to Metro Manila) is a mid size manufacturing facility that has about 100 to 120 employees,” says Francis del Val, president and managing director of GSK Philippines. “It manufactures prod-ucts for both our pharmaceutical and consumer divisions and goes back a while: we recently celebrated our 50 years of manu-facturing in the Philippines.”

Divesting is not in the plans of GSK either, as the company to continue to manufacture in the Philippines. “We are very proud of this manufacturing facility because it serves as a testimony to GSK’s commitment to be a partner in Filipino nation building. It also shows that Philippine manufactured products can be world

class. Our site exports to many neighboring countries and we certainly look forward to more of that in the future, on top of ca-tering to the increasing demand in the local market,” says del Val.

eN priSe!

In chess, a piece is considered ‘en prise’ if it is unprotected and can be captured. In the Philippines, just like in chess, it is impos-sible to understand the moves of the game in a single snapshot. To really understand what is shaking, and where the growth sits, one needs to become part of the game.

“The IMS Health figures show around three to four percent growth in the marketplace, but we are now at a point in time where the business models in this market are changing. The rise of generics and increasing government intervention through price controls have introduced a certain level of complexity. Below this complexity, however, there are many positive signs, ” remarks Raymund Azurin, chief executive of Zuellig Pharma Philippines. Distributors can be considered centerpieces on the chessboard. But how many centerpieces can the market handle? The Zuel-lig Corporation and its subsidiary Metro Drug already occupy more than 80 percent of the distribution market, but a number of niche distributors successfully made inroads too.

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Special SponSored Section

noVeMBer 2013 FOCUS REPORTS S12

taiwan report

pharmaboardroom.com

Development Fund (NDF), says that the Ministry of Economic Affairs recognized the waning opportunities in Taiwan’s prize industry, and looked toward in-cubation. “For the past thirty years, this country has been very successful in semiconductors,” he reports. “But increasingly, the profit margins in this field are shrinking. Meanwhile, in the year 2000, the human genome was sequenced—and like many other countries, Taiwan became very excited about the future of biotech. The sector was chosen as an important driver in the diversification of our economy away from high tech.”

Reflecting on his place in the ecosystem, Su says, “the reason the government created this fund is to help build new indus-tries from the ground up, when there is not yet much guaran-tee of success. In this way, the private sector can build confi-dence.” The NDF must “set the fire—then others will join in by throwing more kindling!”

Among the private sector, the fire is now raging. According to the Market Post Observation System of the Taiwan Stock Exchange, the market capitalization of listed and over-the-counter (OTC) biotech companies in Taiwan has grown an astounding 520% in the last four years alone, from USD 2.5 billion in January 2009 to USD 15.7 billion in March 2013.

Of course, biotech tends to be a much longer-term play than high tech. Investors have had to taper their expectations. Be-fore the mentality shifted, many of the early-mover companies had to demonstrate steady revenues before they could get into the larger rounds of financing. But increasingly, companies are able to sell the dream: “Some time ago,” reports Lee-Chen Liu, president and CEO of the startup EirGenix, “investors in Taiwan would always ask if they could see a return within two or three years. Now, they ask about the product, and the potential. Now, they seem willing to wait.”

EirGenix recently bought DCB’s biopharmaceutical pilot plant facility, with an eye toward providing contract development and manufacturing services (CDMO) to the world. “Our experi-ence was quite remarkable,” Liu says. “We raised USD 18 million in just two months. Our investors include active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) producer Formosa Laboratories—which owns 20 percent of the company—venture capital firms, and banks. I have never seen a fundraising round go this fast in the US.”

Total number of listed and OTC biotech companies in 2012: 71 (up from 13 in 2011)Total revenues of companies in 2012: USD 3.31 billion (up 27% from 2011)Total market capitalization of companies in 2012: USD 13.86 billionTotal market capitalization of companies in April 2013: USD 15.7 billion

Market cap growth, January 2009 – April 2013: 520%

Source: Market Observation Post System, Taiwan Stock Exchange, April 2013

Biotechnology Industry Market Capitalization, 2007–2013

16.00

14.00

12.00

10.00

8.00

6.00

4.00

2.00

0.002007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

Bill

ion

USD

200

160

120

80

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13.86

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Total revenueTotal market valueNo. of listed companies

71

3.31

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FeBrUarY 2014 FOCUS REPORTS S12

“In 2000, there was a significant op-portunity to enter the growing dispensing business,” says Romeo ‘Romi’ Carbonel, president and CEO of niche distributor RBC-MDC. A former vice president of As-traZeneca Philippines, at that time known as Astra, Carbonel set up RBC-MDC 13 years ago to serve the dispensing market. “Around 1997-1998, we started recog-nizing that there was a growing number of doctors with the desire to increase the financial side of their profession, by han-dling their diagnosis and ‘business of dispenses products’ under one roof. Because the top distributor would not handle Astra’s dispensing business at that time, RBC took on Astra as my its first principal,” explains Carbonel. Today, the company can celebrate39 companies as principals during its 13th anniversary since incorporation “Now, we are investing into a new ware-house that will double our existing capacity. Our volumes are in-creasing and our organic growth is tremendous,” Carbonel adds.

“In general, the Philippines differentiates itself because of its strong dispensing market,” says Minerva ‘Mini’ Carbonel, COO of the family-owned RBC-MDC. “Before going to a hospital, most patients will see a family doctor for a small amount of

money, which generally will also dispense the medicines themselves. Today, there are roughly four to five active distribu-tion companies that cater to the dispensing market. Within this market, the oncology area is one of the first focal areas, as on-cologists prefer to dispense the medicines themselves.” says the COO.

tHe re-tale: a Story of geNericS

The policy shifts in favor of generic medicines were coupled with the proliferation of retail chains that heavily advertised the availability of lower priced generic alternatives. Indeed, the biggest success sto-ries as a result of these policy shifts are the retail chains Generika and The Generics Pharmacy: with around 450 and 1,500 outlets mushrooming across the Philippine terri-tory respectively, access to affordable generics has changed dramatically. Their rising power changed the interface be-tween healthcare suppliers, patients and modern retail, es-pecially as the healthcare industry is not necessarily used to modern retail practices, such as the strong focus on above-the-line marketing activities.

From left: Francis del Val, president & managing director, GSK; Raymund T. Azurin, chief executive, Zuellig Pharma Philippines

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S13 FOCUS REPORTS FeBrUarY 2014

“When you would go to a pharmacy in the Philippines ten years ago, you would not be able to find or buy generic medi-cines. We recognized the opportunity to create a project of our own that would give access to quality affordable generic medicines to as many communities as possible. This project would primarily be a business enterprise but it would have a strong social side – this is Generika,” says Julien Bello, vice president of the company. “Generika is organized to make a meaningful social impact on communities all over the coun-try. Educating people and giving them access to quality af-fordable medicines is the primary objective, as this goes a long way towards preserving their overall health at the lowest cost,” adds Teodoro Ferrer, president of Generika.

Today, even Mercury drug the country’s dominant retail chain, is changing. From a traditional basket of premium-priced branded medicines, its outlets now also carry generic medicines. “In terms of prices, the cost of medicine has gone down tremendously in the country. Generic medicines are already 50 to 70 percent cheaper than their branded coun-terparts, while prices are pushed down even more because of the competition in the market. This, together with the Cheaper Medicines Act (MDRP) of 2008, has been very ben-eficial to the patients,” explains Bello.

more goverNmeNt, more private

Looking back, the ambitions of President Aquino to steer the healthcare industry in a direction of affordability and accessibili-ty has paid off. PhilHealth took off, prices dropped, patients saw their choices widened and both local and international compa-nies found ways to grow through relevance and niche strategies.

However, much work remains to be done. “The inclusion of UHC on the presidential agenda has been a giant leap for-ward. Now, the political promise should follow – or come in parallel with – an upgrading of the country’s health systems,” believes Kenneth Hartigan-Go, acting director general of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of the Philippines. “We should also require operational managers to support the six building blocks for health systems as articulated by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2007: health aware-ness, health financing, information & communication tech-nology applications in health, human resource management in health, clinical service delivery between clinical and public health, and access to products,” says Hartigan-Go.

In the next phase, the Philippines will need to find more way to improve the overall quality of healthcare in the Philip-pines. “A great avenue forward, which still remains largely unexplored when it comes to healthcare facilities, would be privatization,” remarks Ramonito ‘Monching’ Tampos, presi-dent and managing director of the German-headquartered MNC Merck. Already, real estate mammoths such as Ayala Land, Greenfield Development Corporation (part of United Laboratories) and Metro Pacific Investment Corporation are seeking control of private hospitals across the country.

Furthermore, there will need to be a change as to how health-care is funded in the Philippines, in order to move away from the out-of-pocket model. “Statistics show that only 30 percent of the population can afford to buy medicine,” says Tampos. “Another question is then to find out how this percentage will evolve with the implementation of PhilHealth and universal healthcare.” All eyes are now turned towards 2016, when presidential elections will select the successor to current President Benigno ‘Noynoy’ Aquino III who will have the difficult task of setting the future direction of the healthcare sector in the Philippines.

From left: Julien B. Bello, vice president, Generika; Teodoro L. Ferrer, president, Generika; Kenneth Hartigan-Go, acting director, FDA Philippines

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As a founding member of the Asso-ciation of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Philippines has been a frontrunner in the push for greater regional cooperation. Though the concept of ASEAN pharmaceutical harmonization was put forward by Malaysia and agreed upon by the Senior Economic Officials Meeting (SEOM) as early as 1999, a regional pharmaceutical trade and regulatory framework has not yet been introduced. The process is expected to be lengthy and fears exist that it will threaten the competitiveness of local Filipino manufacturers, as they struggle to beat down the cost of labor and electric-ity. Others, particularly those with operations across the region, are optimistic about the potential opportunities ASEAN harmonization may bring.

“Harmonizing the ASEAN Common Technical Dossier (ACTD) document is a first step. Business-wise however, each country has its own commercial approach to pharma.

The Philippines, for instance, is a very open market – which is also why there is so much competition. A country like Indonesia, however, is very protective and works very differently than the Phil-ippines. Yet, when we look at the popu-lation levels, these markets play a very important role within Southeast Asia,” explains Lloyd Balajadia, managing di-rector of Lloyd’s Laboratories, one of the leading contract manufacturers

in the Philippines with a joint-venture plant in India and a field force in Vietnam. “Although all countries are evolving towards the Pharmaceutical Inspection Convention and Pharmaceutical Inspection Co-operation Scheme (PIC/S), it will still take a while before we reach a certain harmony on standardized quality levels. There is still limited con-sistency in the way manufacturing facilities are being constructed in the region. At the same time, despite free trade agreements, the commercial approaches remain to be very different from country to country,” he concludes.

Pioneering Harmony

From left: Dr. Lloyd Balajadia, executive director, Lloyd Laboratories Inc; Zenaida Balajadia, chairman of the board-Lloyd Laboratories Inc.

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Although outsourcing has arguably been around since the time of the Industrial Revolution, the concept of hiring a third party to perform a certain amount of activities including HR, finance, adminis-tration, customer service, and many others has been a game changer for businesses around the world since the late 1980s and early 1990s. Although countries such as India established themselves early in the business process outsourcing (BPO) mar-ket, in recent years, there has been a shift towards more diverse locations in recent years, including South America, Eastern Europe and Asia Pacific.

The Philippines has been a huge recipient of this geographical shift, and according to the Business Process Association of the Phil-ippines (BPAP), one of the biggest areas of growth has been in BPO for the healthcare sector: healthcare information management (HIM) services grew by 172 percent in 2011. HIM encompasses electronic medical records, medical claims recovery, patient education, clinical data management, insurance pro-cessing, and other services.

Pointwest, a local Filipino BPO, provides outsourced pharmacy benefit management (PBM) to the US, the processing and paying of prescription drug claims. With an army of pharmacists, as well as registered nurses and data analysts, Pointwest wishes to expand further into this area, capitalizing on its IT capabilities. “We recognize that the health-care sector is a sector of growing importance to the BPO industry,” says Marina Cristina G. Beng Coronel, the company’s president.

This is a belief shared by many others in the sector. Cognizant, specialized in IT services and putting its technological capabilities at the service of the healthcare sector, claims through the voice of its Assistant Vice Presi-dent Jeffrey Williams: “Within the BPO industry, the HIM sector has continuously been the fastest growing sector in recent years.”

Companies like TTSI have specialized in medical transcriptions and are capable of great accomplishments. Managing Director Margarita Paz states: “On average, we are able to produce around 50,000 to 60,000 lines of transcription per day, or about 1.2 million lines per month.” The company is also looking to move beyond transcription services and find new ways to service the healthcare sec-tor: “We also offer mobile solutions for health data reporting and social progress monitor-ing through Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD), which works like an SMS and equips remote areas where internet connection is scarce allowing them to submit required data in a timely manner,” she explains.

Many companies in the Philippines under-stood early on the relevance of the BPO mar-ket, mainly fueled by demand from the US market, and the sector grew at a faster pace than the government realized. “Since many of the local companies were getting contracts from major US contractors back in the early 2000s, the government at first did not even know how many of these companies flooded the market,” explains Monchito Ibrahim, deputy executive director at the Department

Focus on: a boom in BPO

FOCUS ON:

A boom in BPO

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PHILIPPINES MARCH. 2014

of Science and Technology. According to BPAP, today the Philippines is the second largest market for BPO services in the world, just after India. The asso-ciation’s BPO roadmap predicts a 25 percent yearly increase in activity between 2011 and 2016.

In contrast to Western markets, the workforce in the Philippines is only set to grow. Many Filipino BPO companies have drastically invested in talent in order to support US shortage. Beng of Pointwest clarifies: “As the US work-force was getting older, the pressure on finding talent for the healthcare sector became increasingly high. This gap in supply and demand created the push for outsourcing in the healthcare sector, one of the outsourcing indus-try’s last frontiers.”

“There is not a single country that has the talent pool that the Philippines has when it comes to servicing inter-national healthcare clients,” says Wil-liams of Cognizant. Ibrahim backs this up: “If we manage to raise the number of certified Filipinos in the industry, other nations will witness the compe-tence of our locals and generate more dynamism and enthusiasm for this industry. Through training we knew these companies would reach higher value services in medical coding for instance, one of the new upcoming and promising niches for HIM ser-vices.”

Of course, training and talent pool is a result of a public and private effort. “It helps greatly that the Philippine government is supportive of the BPO industry,” says Beng. “When we first started in 2003, BPO was a very new factor in the healthcare sector. When

it comes to recruitment, we now go to the colleges and universities. We reach out to these institutions to market the BPO industry as an alternative career for pharmacists.” Both industry and government have aligned on a series of priorities with the introduction of industry-recog-nized standards and accreditations, or scaling key talent initiatives. In fact both are crucial as the Philip-pines needs to adapt to the always more demanding requirements of other countries, especially the US. Here, Beng adds: “US companies are facing a deadline on October 1, 2014 to switch from ICD-9 to ICD-10 when it comes to their coding needs. Our company has also prepared a solution to help companies cope with this mandatory change.” It is clear that only companies with the capac-ity to react and adapt can survive in this very competitive environment, already pressured on costs. This cost situation is well defined by Ibrahim: “Imagine a price per sheet going from one dollar to five cents and you understand the extent of fierce com-petition and price war the industry was coping with.”

Focus on: a boom in BPO

Jeffrey Williams, Assistant Vice President, Cognizant Philippines

Ibrahim Monchito, Deputy Ex-ecutive Director, Department of Science and Technology (DOST)

Margarita M. Paz, Managing Director, Total Transcript Solutions (TTSI)

Maria Cristina G. “Beng” Coronel, president, Pointwest Technologies.

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PHILIPPINES MARCH. 2014

2006 2009 2010 2011 2012e BaseCase 2016

AcceleratedCase 2016

% of GDP 2.6% 4.2% 4.5% 4.9% 5.6% 6.2% 7.8%

Directemployment 240K 423K 525K 638K 772K 900K 1.3M

Indirectemployment 600K 1.1M 1.3M 1.6M 2.0M 2.3M 3.2M

CAGR:29%

IPPPCAGR:19%

3.27.1

8.911.0

13.4

20.0

25.0

Philippines IT-BPO and GIC IndustryRevenue Targets for 2016

Source: BPAP

US$ Billions

CAGR:22%

CAGR:11%

CAGR:17%

22

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PHILIPPINES MARCH. 2014

INTERVIEW WITH:

Gregorio Navarro, Managing Partner & CEO, Deloitte Philippines

Focus Reports: In your whitepaper ‘What’s next for the Chosen Land?’ you linked the country’s strong economic growth to Pres-ident Aquino’s good governance. At the same time, you warned for possible changes after the 2016 presidential elections. How sustainable is the growth model for the Philippines today?GREGORIO NAVARRO: The challenge for the government and the country is to be able to sustain our growth. What we need to talk about is how to achieve ‘inclusive growth.’ Over the past three years of the Aquino administration, we have experi-enced a mostly jobless growth, because 70 percent of the economy is based on con-sumer spending.

The largest industry we have is the busi-ness process outsourcing (BPO) sector, which already employs roughly 1 million people in the country. Most of these employees are young people with disposable incomes. The second driver of expenditure comes from the eight to ten million Filipinos that work over-seas. They regularly remit money back home, which on an annual basis amounts to an influx into our economy of approximately USD 20 billion. We are second or third to Mexico and India in this regard.

The question is where all these remit-tances should go. Inflation is around 3.2 per-cent and interest rates offered by banks are extremely low at less than one or two percent, although they lend money at six to eight per-cent. In the past, there have been concerns that the global financial crisis would reduce

the overseas remittances. The reality, how-ever, is that the remittances increased over the years and is still expected to continue growing. Now, we need to find a model to translate and mobilize this influx into more jobs and opportunities to our people.

FR: What type of inclusive measures do you feel should be taken by the government to ensure sustainable economic growth?GREGORIO NAVARRO: The Philippine pharma-ceutical industry today is valued at slightly over USD 3 billion with a growth rate of roughly three percent. The forecast for the coming years is roughly 4.6 percent annual growth. The healthcare sector is valued at roughly USD 10 billion, about 65 percent of which is privately funded. Private insur-ance coverage is also low, and only covers around 8.5 percent of the market.

Moreover, roughly 30 percent of the pop-ulation of the Philippines is poor. They live on less than USD 2 per day. In terms of abso-lute numbers, this translates to roughly 30 million people living below the poverty line. Our economy produces one million jobs per year, but every year more than that number enter the working age. Fifty percent of the population is below 24 years old, while two thirds of the population is below 34 years old.

Every year, we have roughly 400,000 to 500,000 new graduates. As a result, many of these jobseekers look for opportunities abroad, something which also translates into a significant human resources challenge for accounting and advisory firms like ours.

Gregorio Navarro, MANAGING PARTNER & CEO, DELOITTE PHILIPPINES

Interview with: Gregorio Navarro, Managing Partner & CEO, Deloitte Philippines

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PHILIPPINES MARCH. 2014

Across the profession, the average attrition rate sits at around 33 percent. Almost all depart for better opportunities abroad, rather than com-petitor firms or private industry within the Philippines.

To achieve inclusive growth we need two things: jobs and a focus on core industries – agriculture tops that list. Today, the agricultural sector represents only 19 percent of our econ-omy, while close to 40 percent of the population works on land. We still import many food items. It is only until recently that we again became a net exporter of rice products.

Another area of the economy that could lead to a more sustainable growth is manufacturing. Even though many foreign companies have moved to China, we are seeing now some renewed interest in the country. The recent political turmoil between China and other neighboring countries, the natural calamities in Japan and Thailand, etc. have caused foreign businesses to take another look at the Philip-pines. In order to encourage foreign direct investments, we also need to continue investing in the energy sector to make our energy costs more affordable. The increasing cost of labor is another aspect that needs to be contained.

FR: Foreign investors need to find answers to the questions they have when entering a mar-ket. How would you assess the current state of FDI in the Philippines?GREGORIO NAVARRO: For the first half of 2013, FDI in the Philippines sat at around USD 2.2 billion, compared to USD 1.9 billion for the same time last year. It is a positive develop-ment but in absolute numbers this still does not compare to the USD 20 billion in Indo-nesia or even the amount Vietnam gets. Compared to the region, our FDI is still very small.

However, it is very encouraging to see the increasing level of investment coming from

local companies and other local investors. In the last three years, only about 40 percent of invest-ments were from foreign investors. The biggest investments were actually made by Filipinos. This was not the case before, when most Filipi-nos were investing their money abroad. The changing dynamics imply that the Filipinos have regained confidence in the country, its leadership and its economy. More than 60 per-cent of our stock market now also consists of investments by local investors. To me, there is no better indication of confidence in the econ-omy than when you see Filipinos themselves investing and expanding their operations in the country.

Gregorio Navarro, MANAGING PARTNER & CEO, DELOITTE PHILIPPINES

The changing dynamics imply that the Filipinos have regained confidence in the country, its leadership and its economy.

Private consumption continuedto drive overall growth

Demand side: contribution to GDP growth

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

Pe

rce

nt

Private consumption

-2

-42008 2009 2010 2011 2012

Capital formation

Net exports

Govt consumption

Discrepancy

GDP growth

Source: National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB)

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Gregorio Navarro, MANAGING PARTNER & CEO, DELOITTE PHILIPPINES

Interview with: Gregorio Navarro, Managing Partner & CEO, Deloitte Philippines

Philippines growth in 2012 was amongstthe highest in the region

Regional GDP growth rates

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

Vietnam Malaysia Indonesia Thailand Philippines China

Pe

rce

nt

2010 2011 2012

Source: World Bank East Asia and Pacific (EAP) Economic Update

2008 2009 2011

1770 1870 2210 ...

4.2 1.1 3.9 6.6

8.3 4.1 4.6

7.4 7.5 7.0 7.0

(0.9) (3.7) (2.0) (2.3)

(2.5) (22.1) (6.3) 8.5

5.6 (24.0) 2.4 5.1

2.1 5.6 3.2 2.9

34.1 32.0 28.8

2012

3.2

...

Economic indicator

Per capita GNI, Atlas method ($)

GDP growth (% change per year)

CPI (% change per year)

Unemployment rate (%)

Fiscal balance (% of GDP)

Export growth (% change per year)

Import growth (% change per year)

Current account balance (% of GDP)

External debt (% of GNI)

2010

2060

7.6

3.9

7.3

(3.5)

34.9

32.9

4.5

31.2

Philippines: Economic indicators, 2008-2012

() = negative, ... = data not available, CPI = consumer price index, GDP = gross domestic product, GNI = gross national income.Source: ADB. 2013. Asian Development Outlook 2013. Manila; ADB staff estimates; economy sources; World Bank. 2013. World Development Indicators Online.

Page 25: Healthcare & Life Sciences Review

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PHILIPPINES MARCH. 2014

Gregorio Navarro, MANAGING PARTNER & CEO, DELOITTE PHILIPPINES

INTERVIEW WITH:

Maria Cristina G. ‘Beng’ Coronel, President, Pointwest Technologies

Maria Cristina G. ‘Beng’ Coronel, PRESIDENT, POINTWEST TECHNOLOGIES

Interview with: Maria Cristina G. ‘Beng’ Coronel, President, Pointwest Technologies

Focus Reports: How do you compare yourself to big players such as SPi Global and Cogni-zant, when it comes to healthcare expertise?BENG: Since we are both an IT and BPO com-pany, Pointwest Technologies has an edge over companies that focus on BPO alone. Our IT expertise serves as an enabler to our BPO solutions. RHEA: Here in the Philippines, our industry is transitioning from BPO into Business Pro-cess Management (BPM). This is a reflection of the convergence between IT and BPO ser-vices. As companies focus on integrated end-to-end solutions, there is a need to be able to support the IT systems that serve as the underlying foundation for BPO solutions.

There is also a growing demand from local companies in the Philippines for BPM services. We expect local companies to par-ticipate in the move to cloud services. Point-west is ideally situated to provide the exper-tise, talent and solutions in this area.BETH: Most BPO companies in the Philip-pines started as call centers. Now, many are trying to reposition their voice services to address the needs of the healthcare market. For its part, Pointwest Technologies decided to move into pharmacy benefit management (PBM).

PBM is a unique feature of mature mar-kets or developed economies like the US. For most of the European economies, the state provides healthcare services. In the US, how-ever, the private sector can opt to sign up for prescription drug coverage for their employ-ees, in addition to their health plans.

We are now active in this segment, and

recognize the importance of healthcare in both the US and developed countries in gen-eral, where changing legislation is increasing demand for IT and BPM services.

FR: When we speak of an increased use of mobile devices and tablets, there must be a significant difference between mature mar-kets such as the US versus developing mar-kets such as the Philippines. How do you adapt your business development approach accordingly?RHEA: In the Philippines, for example, the adoption rate of electronic medical records (EMRs) is very low compared to markets such as the US and Australia. We try to learn from markets such as the US, to better understand what technologies can be used and deployed. BENG: There are providers in the Philippines that are already offering telehealth services, for example in the area of radiology. This trend has already taken off in markets such as Sri Lanka and India.

Our experience in reaching those Filipi-nos that do not have access to hospitals comes from the banking sector. We are ser-vicing the ‘unbanked segment’ through a mobile system that gives them access to banking facilities, in the same manner that health can be brought to the people. We feel this model can also be applied to the field of healthcare, so that segments of the popula-tion who have no access to hospitals can, through mobile phones, tablets, and other technologies, obtain healthcare services.

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With our broad understanding of the healthcare environment, Arup has the expertise to ensure patients, clinicians and administrators benefit from well-designed facilities that are cost-effective, energy-efficient, appropriate to their context and flexible for future development.

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Creating caring environments to meet tomorrow’s needs

Page 27: Healthcare & Life Sciences Review

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PHILIPPINES MARCH. 2014

INTERVIEW WITH:

Raul Manlapig, Principal Managing Director, Arup, Philippines

Focus Reports: The Philippine economy is growing at a rapid pace, making it attrac-tive for foreign investors. Yet, to what extent have you seen the country’s growth reflecting in more investment in infrastruc-ture?RAUL MANLAPIG: The growth of the Philip-pine economy is being fueled by strong domestic consumption and an increase in investments. Large business groups such as Ayala, San Miguel, Metro Pacific, The Lopez Group, Aboitiz, SM Holdings, the Gokongwei group to name a few have diver-sified into other sectors such as power, infrastructure communication, mining, water and healthcare. These moves towards diversification have increased their invest-ments over the past couple of years.

Also, a recent World Bank economic update indicated that public spending grew to an equivalent of 16.8 percent of GDP with infra-structure showing the highest increase. How-ever, despite the increased public spending infrastructure spending only accounted for 2.5 percent of GDP, which is below the SE Asia average of about 5 percent of GDP. There seems to be a lack of foreign direct invest-ments due to unattractive terms compared to other SE Asia nations. The lack of FDI is a big challenge to the government in successfully implementing strategic infrastructure proj-ects and is seen to weaken our economic com-petitiveness.

It is obvious that we are not seeing the same pace of growth in infrastructure invest-ment compared to investments in private led projects in manufacturing, power generation,

real property development, etc.Rapid urbanization in Metro Manila, for

example, with an estimated population of 12 million, has put a strain on its public infra-structure systems such as connectivity, energy, water, waste disposal, sanitation, drainage, hospitals and so on. The govern-ment will need to address this swiftly, and key to this is being able to attract private sector interest in partnering with them.

FR: How does this reflect on Arup’s global and local set of capabilities in the healthcare sector?RAUL MANLAPIG: Arup has more than 40 years’ experience in the healthcare industry and has completed 2,500 healthcare projects under its name. This has provided us with an in-depth understanding of the challenges confronted by the industry such as continu-ally improving quality of care, patient expe-rience and financial performance. Arup’s global skills draw on an unparalleled range of services across planning, design, engi-neering and business consultancy to develop integrated solutions across healthcare estates, workforce and operations.

We combine our global and local skills set to offer the most cost-effective service pos-sible. The Philippines’ healthcare sector is a high potential market, as the demands for adequate hospitals and access of the poor to better healthcare services and facilities are high in the country. With our experience we can help clients achieve end-to-end provi-sions of world class healthcare services effi-ciently and sustainably.

Raul Manlapig, PRINCIPAL MANAGING DIRECTOR, ARUP, PHILIPPINES

Interview with: Raul Manlapig, Principal Managing Director, Arup, Philippines

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PHILIPPINES MARCH. 2014

FR: During a recent speech, British Ambassa-dor to the Philippines Stephen Lillie spoke of ‘huge opportunities for British companies’ due to an improved business environment in the country. Health undersecretary Teodoro Herbosa said in the same event that several opportunities are likewise available as the government is looking to modernize hospitals to provide healthcare. What is your message to the government on Arup’s readiness and willingness to take on such healthcare proj-ects?RAUL MANLAPIG: The Philippines is grappling with the challenges of drastically improving the quality of healthcare and patient experi-ence while at the same time achieving the financial performance. Healthcare is very expensive and at least 60 percent of our pop-ulation is without proper healthcare services and facilities. Our unique trust ownership fosters a distinctive culture and an intellec-tual independence, which enable us to invest in R&D and develop our experts to become leaders in their fields. Our global reach gives us the advantage of bringing in relevant resources in dealing with the myriad of issues those healthcare industries around the world face. We are able to apply our learnings from various projects to suit local challenges that have been encountered before by other coun-tries. Our approach to healthcare is based on understanding and bringing together estates, leadership, workforce and operations. We believe that it is only through an in-depth understanding in each of these areas, and the links between them that truly sustainable,

patient-oriented solution can be delivered.remove from here

FR: How do you want to shape the future of the Philippines?RAUL MANLAPIG: The Philippines is an emerg-ing nation and needs change in many differ-ent areas. For example, we are experiencing the effects of urbanization in the same way that China, Brazil, Indonesia and others are undergoing. With the increasing population of Metro Manila and other urban areas there is a need for us to look at urbanization issues and be able to transform our growing cities into smart and green cities. We will have to deal with issues such as urban mobility, more efficient use of energy and sustainable build-ings. Increased use of vehicles presents a gen-uine threat to economic security for many nations, including the Philippines, due to the need to import fuel. Investment in urban transport and communications infrastruc-ture is critical for the enhancement of eco-nomic potential in urbanized areas. There should be targeted investment to drive sig-nificant growth and economic development. Hong Kong and Singapore for example, have invested heavily on rail systems, as we can see their growth has been sustained for many years and will likely to be sustained for many years more as they continue to spend in improving their systems alongside the growth of their economies. Our government needs to act fast enough to address this need to facilitate our growth, for example, solicit-ing private investors to invest in PPP.

Raul Manlapig, PRINCIPAL MANAGING DIRECTOR, ARUP, PHILIPPINES

Page 29: Healthcare & Life Sciences Review

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PHILIPPINES MARCH. 2014

INTERVIEW WITH:

Jason Carroll, General Manager, Janssen (Philippines)

Focus Reports: Mr. Carroll, how would you introduce Janssen Philippines?JASON CARROLL: It is hard to discuss Jans-sen without first talking about the com-pany’s founder, Dr Paul Janssen. In the years before his death in 2003, he filed over 100 patents, authored 700 scientific Publications and had oversight on the formulation and synthesis of 80 New Chemical Entities with the scientists at Janssen.

Dr Paul Janssen is globally recog-nized as one of the greatest formulation scientists in history. He built the com-pany that would become Janssen Phar-maceutica in 1956 and Janssen has been part of the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies since 1961.

Janssen, now one of the most innova-tive companies in the world, was first introduced into the Philippines in 1982. Janssen Philippines specializes not only in innovative medicines in oncology and immunology, but also has-over the coun-ter (OTC) and pain treatments that serve many thousands of patients. As a com-pany, our vision is to ensure that in the eyes of our employees, our customers and our competitors, we are seen as the most reputable pharmaceutical company in the Pharmaceutical industry. .

FR: It seems that everything is in place, but there is still work to be done on rais-ing the awareness on the reputation and values that Janssen Philippines stands for in this market. What do you see as

your tasks to enhancing this awareness level?JASON CARROLL: We have made a number of decisions in recent times to lift our visibility in the Philippines. The first was to build a new, sustainable office to provide our loyal team an enjoyable place to work as well as to attract new talent into the organization. We have also invested in the development of an indus-try leading training & development cen-ter to ensure our customer facing team members are highly skilled in their inter-actions with customers. We wish to focus on the science behind our products in order to differentiate our products within the industry. We believe that we have the current and future products to back up our confidence to do so.

Another core priority is to ensure that we have the best technology available in the industry. Just two years ago, many of our representatives did not even have access to laptops. In just 18 months, lap-tops, smartphones, iPads and the indus-try leading electronic territory manage-ment system is the norm for our team. We have come a long way to understand-ing the value of sales force effectiveness and interactive learning.

As well as these things, , our customer facing team proudly wear a Janssen uni-form, which is quite unique for the industry. We are so immensely proud of the Janssen heritage and wish to show-case the organization that we represent.

In terms of people, we search for tal-

Jason Carroll, GENERAL MANAGER, JANSSEN PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES OF JOHNSON & JOHNSON, A DIVISION OF JOHNSON & JOHNSON (PHILIPPINES.) INC.

Interview with: Jason Carroll, General Manager, Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies, a division of Johnson & Johnson (Philippines.) Inc.

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PHILIPPINES MARCH. 2014

ent with a thirst for knowledge, confidence, persistence and the ability to listen. Jans-sen is an equal opportunity employer. We wish to be seen as an organization that looks after its people, provides them with tremendous benefits and challenges them on a daily basis. I want our employees to be convinced that they do not want to work anywhere else – just continue to grow with Janssen. Already today, I feel that we are close to reaching this mindset with our lat-est internal survey suggesting that 90% of our people feel strongly about remaining with Janssen through the next 12 months.

FR: Do you see think that the Philippines has the potential to become a major growth driver for Janssen in Southeast Asia?JASON CARROLL: With a population approach-ing 100 million, the Philippines has tremen-dous potential to be a strong growth driver for healthcare in Southeast Asia over the next two decades. That said, I believe it will still take considerable time to build momen-tum. The average age of the population is significantly lower when compared to typi-cal western countries. One also needs to consider the fact that the average spend on healthcare is only USD 97 per year at the present time. Out of pocket spend is the norm and reimbursement remains rare. If GDP continues to grow in high single digits (as it has over the last few years), then the Philippines will certainly be a major eco-nomic force in many industries including healthcare in 10 – 20 years from now. The country has a young population with great ambitions. Once these younger generations reach their peak in a few years from now, the Philippines will be unstoppable.

Janssen Philippines has a number of promising new compounds approaching. These compounds will be in areas such as

Oncology, Infections Diseases (HIV, Hepati-tis-C, Multidrug resistant TB) and Diabetes

FR: In 2013, Janssen Pharmaceuticals received the FDA approval for INVOKANA for type 2 diabetes. Will this be an important growth area?JASON CARROLL: Diabetes is a significant health issue in the Philippines, with 8 per cent of Filipinos currently diagnosed with Type-2 Diabetes and the reality is that the impacted population is expected to double within the next decade. Certainly Type-2 Diabetes is a disease in need of treatment options... We are awaiting approval of INVOKANA in the Philippines and we hope to bring this product to the Filipino popula-tion in 2015..

FR: What is the type of legacy you want to build in the Philippines?JASON CARROLL: In the next two years, I would like to build a path toward long-term sustainable growth for our Philippine oper-ations. I would also hope that Janssen can become an employer of choice within the Philippines through our excellent people, outstanding products and ethical reputa-tion.

Jason Carroll, GENERAL MANAGER, JANSSEN PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES OF JOHNSON & JOHNSON, A DIVISION OF JOHNSON & JOHNSON (PHILIPPINES.) INC.

With a population approaching 100 million, the Philippines has tremendous potential to be a strong growth driver for healthcare in Southeast Asia over the next two decades. That said, I believe it will still take considerable time to build momentum.

Page 31: Healthcare & Life Sciences Review

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PHILIPPINES MARCH. 2014

INTERVIEW WITH:

Dr. Enrique T. Ona, Secretary of Health, Department of Health

Focus Reports: President Aquino has recently stated that the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation, PhilHealth, now covers 81 per-cent of the population of the Philippines, as part of the government’s universal health-care plan. So far, what has universal health-care brought to the country?DR. ENRIQUE T. ONA: The most important reform, or change, was the inclusion of health as a growth driver of the Philip-pines. Essentially, our ambition was to make sure that all Filipinos, especially the poor, were to be included in our national health insurance program.

In fact, the country already had health insurance, so-called Medicare, since 1969. This system only covered the formal sector: those employed. The poor were presumed to be taken care of through our govern-ment hospitals and had no official insur-ance system.

In 1995, the first Law on PhilHealth was passed. This Law stated that in 15 years, all Filipinos should be enrolled or covered through national health insurance. By 2010, however, only 54 per cent of the pop-ulation was covered, essentially the formal sector.

PhilHealth mandated that every Fili-pino, meaning both the formal and infor-mal sector, would be enrolled through a single insurance wherein the poor would be enrolled through a premium paid for and shared by the national and local govern-ments. In practice, the majority of the local

governments were unable to afford their share in the program. As a result, many of the poor were not enrolled.

When the new administration took over in 2010, our mantra was to include the pre-viously overlooked poorest segment of the population. Through our Department of Social Welfare, we had identified 5.2 mil-lion households as part of the poor layer of society. Note that we spoke of households, which could include four to five family members. In terms of people, that number comes down to roughly 25 million, or a quarter of the country’s population.

FR: What are your priorities in terms of investments in the healthcare infrastruc-ture in the Philippines?DR. ENRIQUE T. ONA: The allocated invest-ments to improve our local government health facilities as well as our national gov-ernment hospitals have significantly gone up in the last two years. We have a program called the Health Facility Enhancement Program (HFEP), which sets targets for budget allocation to improve our health care facilities through 2016.

For instance, for the improvement of our smallest political units covering three to five thousand people or 500 families on average, so-called barangays, these areas would normally have small health units with one midwife, one barangay health worker, etc., usually volunteers. Their main task is to provide local families with infor-

Secretary of Health, DR. ENRIQUE T. ONA

Interview with: Secretary of Health, Dr. Enrique T. Ona

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PHILIPPINES MARCH. 2014

mation on health care, as well as the basic primary care or preventive measures.

FR: What are some of the main illnesses you prioritize on your agenda over the next few years?DR. ENRIQUE T. ONA: In the next three to five years we should also be tackling the neglected tropical diseases, such as dengue and lepto-spirosis, which you still find in the Philip-pines today. We have doubled our budget to detect and treat these diseases. At present, we have 27 out of 82 malaria-free provinces in the Philippines. By definition, this implies that the province cannot have a single malaria patient in five years. By 2016, we aim to have 40 provinces malaria-free. Overall, we aim to eliminate these diseases from being a public threat. Rabies is also still a problem in our rural areas. Though we have programs to tackle diseases like rabies, the laws are not being properly implemented.

HIV, too, is an increasing problem in the Philippines. From 1983 up to 2013, the total number of HIV cases sat at around 12,000, representing less than 0.5 per cent of the pop-ulation. We expect a substantial, almost geo-metric, increase in HIV cases in the Philip-pines. We have already proposed amendments to our HIV laws and are becoming more aggressive in our public education efforts for the young. Believe it or not, but 80 percent of the new cases is the result of unprotected homosexual or bisexual contact. Now, we are proposing certain amendments to the HIV law to ensure better reporting and prevention of its prevalence.

FR: What have been some of the major suc-cesses thus far?DR. ENRIQUE T. ONA: We have reached a number of major achievements with this government on the healthcare front. First of all, we have

been able to pass a major law on the funding of health care in the Philippines, through increased taxes on alcohol and tobacco prod-ucts.

Second is the passage of our reproductive health and responsible parenthood Act, which will soon make it possible for us to aggres-sively address the problem of maternal and infant mortality, especially for the poor and near poor.

The third achievement is the amendment to our national health insurance Act that clearly states that all civilians should be cov-ered through our national insurance, Phil-Health, with particular emphasis on the poor and near poor. It is now mandatory, rather than a choice, to be enrolled.

FR: What potential do you see to turn the Phil-ippines into a medical tourism destination?DR. ENRIQUE T. ONA: The Department of Tourism is very active in making the Philippines a pri-ority destination, and it is a program that we too should strategically encourage. However, we leave the implementation to the private sector, as all our attention is currently required to reach universal healthcare and help the poor. We are pleased to note that we have at least half a dozen hospitals that have received international and ISO accredita-tions.

It is also worth noting that the Philippines has partnered with the United Nations Eco-nomic Commission for Europe (UNECE) to turn Manila, and the Philippines, into the center for public private partnerships (PPP). The modernization of our DOH hospital is for instance open to PPP investments. We are also about to start our first major PPP for the Philippine orthopedic center, and, we have around 25 other major government hospitals open to this strategy.

Secretary of Health, DR. ENRIQUE T. ONA

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PHILIPPINES MARCH. 2014

INTERVIEW WITH:

Alexander A. Padilla, President & Ceo, Philhealth

Focus Reports: 2013 was the year in which the National Health Insurance Act took effect. What are the implications of this law for PhilHealth and the healthcare sys-tem in the Philippines?ALEXANDER A. PADILLA: The implications are significant. Officially called Republic Act 10606, this new law will be governing the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation. It brings a number of innovations.

The most important novelty exists in the subsidy given by the national govern-ment. We used to have partial subsidies between the national and the local gov-ernments, in order to pay for the premi-ums of the poor. For the first time around, the national government has now allotted PHP 35 billion for the poor. This repre-sents a threefold increase from last year’s support program, set to cover a total of 14.7 million families, which translates into 53 to 54 million individuals, for an annual premium of up to PHP 2,400 per year. In other words, we are talking about half of the Philippine population now cov-ered by the national government. Our role as PhilHealth is to ensure that all of these premiums are being translated into actual names and addresses. We will need to assign these people to particular rural health units, where they are supposed to receive their preventive and curative ben-efits.

Another new aspect is that the fact that we will be embarking on a new relation-ship with the local government units

(LGUs). The primary role of PhilHealth and the LGUs was to enroll the poor. The national government is taking over enroll-ment, whereas the proportion of the poor are now identified by one government agency: The Department of Social Welfare under the National Household Targeting System Poverty Reduction Scheme. They provide a list of people which PhilHealth merely adopts. The LGUs in turn will to sponsor those doing business with them, as well as the other workers in the infor-mal sector, such as the barangay workers. In this way, I also see us increasing our enrolment in a qualitative manner.

Other effects of the new law sit on the preventive side, which will go beyond the usual examinations, blood counts, and so forth. By next year, we will be using the ‘Point of Care Benefit Package 2’ or PCB 2. For the first time, the rural health units will be providing medicines for at least two of the most common non-communi-cable diseases: diabetes and hypertension.

The new law also gives us a particular bias towards the poor. In this way, we have embarked on a ‘no-balance billing’, par-ticularly for the medical care provided to them. This system implies that the poor should not be paying a single cent for their medicines, for their room, and even for the professional fee, though the latter is harder to implement.

Aside from that, we will also be intro-ducing the ‘point of care enrolment’. Even though we have planned to enroll the

Alexander A. Padilla, PRESIDENT & CEO, PHILHEALTH

Interview with: Alexander A. Padilla, President & Ceo, Philhealth

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PHILIPPINES MARCH. 2014

aforementioned 14.7 million families, we understand that some leakages may occur. With this we refer to other members of the poor, who are not enrolled in PhilHealth nor are they sponsored by local governments or any other groups. When they will now get sick, they can be enrolled by the local hospi-tals to become part of the poor paying the annual premium of PHP 2,400. To such peo-ple, our services are being made immediately available, without a waiting period.

If we implement this well, we could safely say that all of the poor –regardless where they come from- will be 100 per cent covered in two years from now.

FR: At the State of the Nation address this year, President Aquino stated that 81 per cent of the population is now covered by Phil-Health. Many decision-makers among the medical and business community doubt its accuracy. Can you clarify this discrepancy?ALEXANDER A. PADILLA: The 81 per cent, which is now 83 per cent already, is our rate of enrolment. The enrolment rate means that these are people that have come under the health insurance program at one point or another. Whether they can avail of benefits, is what our coverage rate focuses on. Our covered rate is really around 73 to 74 per cent. We thus speak of a discrepancy between the enrolment and covered rate.

FR: Budget pressures require you to focus on generic medicines. However, what do you consider as a healthy balance to ensure a cer-tain degree of quality and innovation?ALEXANDER A. PADILLA: When I was at the Department of Health, the struggle between generic and innovative medicines was criti-cal. At PhilHealth, however, this struggle assumes a less important role.

When we offer a case rate amount, such

as dengue at PHP 8,000 for instance, we pay that amount once the procedure has been done. This payment is being made regardless of the medicines that were actually used. These could have been branded, generic, or even in violation of the Philippine National Drug Formulary (PNDF).

While we still reimburse the same amount in such cases, if we find violations of these rules in our post audit, we will deduct the violated amount from future reimburse-ments. This is a post audit or monitoring sys-tem as far as PhilHealth is concerned.

FR: Lastly, what is your take on the political will towards improving healthcare in the Philippines?ALEXANDER A. PADILLA: President Aquino’s commitment to PhilHealth reflects in our own programs. He has a particular bias to the poor and in line with his ambitions, already half of the population now falls under national coverage. When it comes to health, the political will is certainly there. In a matter of two years, the budget of the Department of Health has increased from roughly PHP 35 billion to PHP 80 billion.

With the approval of the Sin Tax Reform, the Responsible Parenthood Act and with the new PhilHealth Law all done in less than three years, we see a clear political commit-ment and a presidential bias towards health.

Alexander A. Padilla, PRESIDENT & CEO, PHILHEALTH

If we implement this well, we could safely say that all of the poor –regardless where they come from- will be 100 per cent covered in two years from now.

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PHILIPPINES MARCH. 2014

INTERVIEW WITH:

Dr. Kenneth Y Hartigan-Go, General Director, Fda

Focus Reports: One of the FDA’s main con-cerns is to protect the quality of medicines in the market. Both the MNCs and the local Philippine manufacturers are required to adhere to very strict standards in this regard. Many of them, however, have expressed their concerns over the quality of imported products. From an FDA perspec-tive, do you see this as a challenge? If so, how can this challenge be addressed?DR. KENNETH Y HARTIGAN-GO: We are con-cerned over the quality of many generic medicines that are currently being mar-keted and sold in the Philippines. A 2006 survey indicated that only 20 out of 70 local pharmaceutical manufacturers surveyed were following cGMP guidelines. Since then, the number has improved. In one way or the other, all companies are now compli-ant with good manufacturing practices. However, our audits remain nothing but a snapshot of the company. There are limited guarantees to the robustness of the quality and methods according to which these manufacturers operate. We have been assured that more than 60 local companies are cGMP compliant. However, this does not mean that the quality of their products is good.

For the overseas importers of finished products we will soon inspect their cGMP sup-plier’s compliance. At the moment, registra-tion for those companies is based on paper certificates. As a regulatory agency, we vali-date these documents.

FR: What strategies have you implemented to address these issues?DR. KENNETH Y HARTIGAN-GO: The first step is the application of the ASEAN common technical document (ACTD). Up until recently, if companies could not comply with the document, we would create a national simplified regulatory route within the country. As from August 1, 2013, this ACTD process has been adopted.

Second, the Philippine FDA now requires its inspectors to inspect the overseas manu-facturing facilities of companies that export finished products to the Philippines.

Our third strategy is for generic products – especially those belonging to category four (indicating low permeability and low solubil-ity) – to undergo bioequivalent testing as a mandatory requirement for license renewals. Anything new would also require bioequiva-lence data from now on. At the moment, we only have three bioequivalence testing centers in the country. They were charging PHP 1 mil-lion (USD 25,000) per product to be tested. Because these are private industry centers, we as the regulatory body have no legal ground to gain access to their data. Although the gov-ernment has accredited these three centers, we had never thought of imposing data trans-parency. This will now change. In fairness, we also need to bring down the prices of bio-equivalence testing. As part of our strategy, we also intend to create more bioequivalence testing centers around the country.

The fourth strategy is the imposition of product stewardship by the industry. Unlike

Dr. Kenneth Y Hartigan-Go, GENERAL DIRECTOR, FDA

Interview with: Dr. Kenneth Y Hartigan-Go, General Director, Fda

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big pharma, generics companies rarely engage in post-marketing surveillance of their own products. This will also change as we will start implementing Risk Management Planning (RMP). RMP is enshrined in Law RA9502, which is a law from 2008 requiring companies to invest in product monitoring. Though signed in 2008, this law has not yet been implemented. As an operational manager, it is my task to implement this law.

To further level the playing field, a fifth strat-egy is the application of a 2010 document called the ‘APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation) Declaration of Ethical Marketing Practices for Biopharmaceuticals.’ This document was signed by APEC member countries in Hawaii but never implemented in the Philippines yet. Just six weeks ago, we at the FDA created a marketing communications unit to prepare an FDA guide-line on what is ethical or unethical in terms of marketing practices. The Philippine Pharmaceu-tical and Healthcare Association of the Philip-pines (PHAP) has pushed through an ethical code of practice for the MNCs in the Philippines that is aligned with the IFPMA guidelines. Local companies, however, have not yet adopted such guidelines on a voluntary basis. To address this disparity, FDA will in time implement APEC guidelines for all players in the market.

FR: We took note of the FDA’s intentions to raise registration fees. Can you elaborate?DR. KENNETH Y HARTIGAN-GO: In our view, we feel that no Filipino taxpayer should be subsidiz-ing product registrations of individual com-panies. At PHP 20,000 (USD 500) our fees for three to five years of registration are still very low, especially taking into account that other countries charge up to PHP 480,000 (USD 12,000). In principle, we do not view this as raising fees but as correcting and restructur-ing fees.

FR: From an FDA perspective, what is your take on what universal healthcare will do to this market?DR. KENNETH Y HARTIGAN-GO: Universal health-care coverage is a political promise that should follow or come in parallel with an upgrading of the country’s health systems. It is a step forward for the country, but should also require operational managers to support the six building blocks for health systems as articulated by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2007: health governance, health financing, information & communication technology applications in health, human resource management in health, health ser-vice delivery between clinical and public health, and access to products.

At present, our approach to achieving the WHO building blocks is still very fragmented and inefficient. Without the support of these building blocks, our country will never achieve universal health care coverage. More than financing alone, universal healthcare coverage is about having the right services ready, clear and consistent regulations, good corporate gov-ernance, communication flow between local and national governments, and so forth.

Dr. Kenneth Y Hartigan-Go, GENERAL DIRECTOR, FDA

Universal healthcare coverage is a political promise that should follow or come in parallel with an upgrading of the country’s health systems.

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INTERVIEW WITH:

Teodoro B. Padilla & Reiner W. Gloor, Executive Director & Advisor, Phap

Focus Reports: In 2010, the Aquino govern-ment pledge to make universal healthcare coverage a priority. Three years later, where do the MNCs stand within this changing landscape?REINER W. GLOOR: Healthcare should be more than a game of prices alone. We have observed a shift with many of the industry’s stakeholders –including several NGOs– now taking a more holistic view beyond drug prices. The sector is now taking a joint approach to define a sustainable future for the healthcare system as a whole.TEODORO B. PADILLA: For many years now, PHAP –under the guidance of Reiner Gloor– has been building its relationship with the various stakeholders of the sector. Now, we have reached a point where we have gained the trust of groups that were traditionally opposed to big pharma. As a result, we are now acting as partners with one goal in com-mon: to increase the access to healthcare in the Philippines. Apart from the NGOs, this includes institutions such as the Depart-ment of Health, the local FDA and the Phil-ippine Health Insurance Corporation (Phil-Health).

FR: The Philippines’ pharmaceutical market has a CAGR of around 3% now. What are your observations and expectations about the growth in this market?REINER W. GLOOR: The Philippines is a market with a big population that –unofficially– should now exceed the 100 million people. Growth in value sits at around 3% now, while growth in volume is around 8%. The

growth in volume, however, is almost entirely accounted for by the expansion of generics. Many of these generics are in fact not related to the compounds that recently became pr ice-control led, such as Paracetamol. In my own opinion, I think that the MNCs currently touch around 15 out of 100 million people in the Philippines. For the years ahead, I would expect to see between 3 to 5 percent growth in value and up to 5 or 6 percent in volume growth.

FR: What is your advice on the Philippines to MNCs?REINER W. GLOOR: A CEO here needs to be patient. To pursue his goals, he needs to remain flexible and adapt to the market needs. In the long run the outlook is cer-tainly positive, albeit at lower growth rates. I do believe that we need to be satisfied with somewhat lower returns.TEODORO B. PADILLA: Apart from remaining patient, it is important to continuously engage with the different industry stake-holders, most particularly the legislators and the Department of Health. At the end of the day, these people have the desire to better understand the sector and its chal-lenges but most importantly to deliver the best health service possible.

Teodoro B. Padilla & Reiner W. Gloor, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR & ADVISOR, PHAP

Interview with: Teodoro B. Padilla & Reiner W. Gloor, Executive Director & Advisor, Phap

Healthcare should be more than a game of prices alone

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Teodoro B. Padilla & Reiner W. Gloor, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR & ADVISOR, PHAP

Interview with: Thelma Tobias-Go And Ed Ocampo, President Of Pcpi & Vp Of Scheele Laboratories

Focus Reports: Generic drugs, which are now on the rise, quickly become a commod-ity. Can you elaborate on how local gener-ics manufacturers can build a competitive edge and differentiate themselves?THELMA TOBIAS-GO AND ED OCAMPO: The basic principle still comes down to differentia-tion through marketing efforts in terms of packaging, product placement, and so forth. More than promotional efforts, the industry is also increasingly looking into partnerships. The government has already opened its doors for public-private part-nerships (PPP).

While it is being said that a real PPP has not yet been created, I personally believe that we now have a number of informal PPPs. A first case can be seen in the computerization of the local FDA. Let’s consider the following specific example. To reduce costs, the government has a ‘procurement services’ unit in its Department of Budget and Management. All the different government offices pro-curing anything –like office supplies for instance– are stockpiling under the PSTDM. The idea is to have a certain gov-ernment entity like PIPC –a government operated and controlled corporation– under the Department of Health to stock-p i l e c o m m o n m o l e c u l e s – l i k e paracetamol– and push other depart-ments in the government, l ike the Department of Justice. This can really push the local industry.

FR: Roughly a decade ago, there were roughly 200 Filipino pharmaceutical manufacturers in the market. In 2010, this number had already come down to 130. What is the situ-ation today? Is there also room and willing-ness to consolidate?THELMA TOBIAS-GO AND ED OCAMPO: At present, there are roughly 65 pharmaceutical manu-facturers in the Philippines. In terms of consolidation, many of these businesses are still family-owned, which has perhaps refrained the industry from consolidating over time. Alternatively however, we are now working together on other capabilities. Part of our business model is to look at joint-ventures, partnerships, mergers and acquisitions. Mergers are of course a far-fetched idea for most of these family-owned structures but partnerships, often with off-shore companies, are becoming a trend.

INTERVIEW WITH:

Thelma Tobias-Go And Ed Ocampo, President Of Pcpi & Vp Of Scheele Laboratories

More than promotional efforts, the industry is also increasingly looking into partnerships. The government has already opened its doors for public-private partnerships (PPP)

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INTERVIEW WITH:

Thomas Weigold, Country President And Managing Director, Novartis

Focus Reports: The role of generics is on the rise in the Philippines, much like in many other markets. While Novartis has its generics arm through Sandoz, this is not (yet) the case for every MNC. From a broader perspective, what do you see as a suitable survival strategy for inno-vative products in the Philippines?THOMAS WEIGOLD: The dynamics of the big MNCs are very different nowadays. Companies that strongly believe in research will keep bringing new mole-cules to the different markets. More than new molecules alone, MNCs are also bringing new combinations. At Novartis, for instance, we have a unique offering: a triple combination in anti-hypertension treatment. Combinations are not only more cost-effective for patients, it also makes them stick to their necessary treatments.

There is a much bigger volume busi-ness in generics at the moment, because a large part of the Filipino population still cannot afford more innovative med-icines. We have to accept this trend and play our role in our segment of the mar-ket. With the right strategy, companies like Novartis can do good business here.

FR: When you first arrived in the Philip-pines two years ago, you made a public announcement on the intention to focus on a few therapeutic areas. Apart from hypertension, these included asthma, diabetes and specialty areas. How much progress have you made in these two

years and where do you see room for improvement?THOMAS WEIGOLD: It was part of the strat-egy to prioritize our portfolio. The Phil-ippines has a high unmet medical need in many different therapeutic areas. As a company, it is very easy to expand into painkillers, anti-infectives, and so forth. However, we have chosen to pick the right offer and only address a number of selected therapeutic areas. Our organiza-tion has been aligned according to this strategy. We have been working on our capabilities in these areas and have vig-orously trained our people to thoroughly understand and specialize in these areas. We have turned them into experts on these diseases. Now, we are on the way to launching a range of new products in areas such as respiratory. In hyperten-sion and diabetes we are already present.

FR: Some of the country managers of MNCs here in the Philippines have described the Philippines as a ‘prototype market’, mainly because it is possible to launch new products very rapidly here. Do you look at this market in a similar man-ner?THOMAS WEIGOLD: The approach of the FDA Philippines is quite straightforward, so I would agree with that statement. What we try to do as an organization is to provide the FDA with all the necessary documents and quality information. When we submit our dossiers, we already provide all the necessary data so that our

Thomas Weigold, COUNTRY PRESIDENT AND MANAGING DIRECTOR, NOVARTIS

Interview with: Thomas Weigold, Country President And Managing Director, Novartis

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application is complete. Data quality and transparency are key in this process.

FR: A topic worth addressing is clinical tri-als, particularly if we look at the 100 mil-lion population of diverse ethnical back-grounds. What footprint do you want to leave behind in the Philippines in this regard?THOMAS WEIGOLD: Clinical research is a very important part of our strategy. As a com-pany we are convinced that we need to drive business by data. We need to be able to tell the story ‘behind the white pill ’. After Toyota, we are the biggest MNC glob-al ly that invests into R&D. The story ‘behind the white pill ’ has to be transpar-ent, evidence or fact-based, and has to be told to the right people – often payers, sometimes the government and, to a large extent, the doctors.

We can produce a lot of data in Europe or the US, which is a good thing in itself. However, there are different genetic pre-conditions in different ethnic groups. Therefore, even once we have a product registered we feel that we should continue to do research to provide more data at a local level. This cannot be done every-where, but in a large population of 100 million people like the Philippines, this can be an asset. Today, we already are the number one company engaged in research in the Philippines. The Philippines has many well-trained doctors, partly overseas and partly here. The education system and research facilities are there too, and we have programs to work together with dif-ferent universities and hospitals to estab-lish clinical research sites. Again, the fact that English is an official language is a major asset now that all clinical studies are being conducted in English.

FR: Where do you hope to see Novartis Philip-pines in three to five years from now?THOMAS WEIGOLD: The pipeline of products we can potentially launch in the next five years in the Philippines is very big. Regardless of any promotional muscle, which is a market-ing technique from the past, it is about matching medicines with medical needs. Programs like PhilHealth are also likely to provide additional avenues to achieve greater access to health care. I think that we can become an even bigger player in the future.

As an industry, I hope we continue to approach doctors in a professional manner. We should always continue to work on the image and reputation that we have as an industry.

Apart from GDP growth, there are many ongoing positive developments in the Phil-ippines. I think that Novartis will probably be one of the most preferred partners in the Philippines vis à vis the other stakeholders of the sector. I am quite convinced that we will be an even stronger player in the future.

Going forward, it will be very interesting to observe how the implementation of the ASEAN harmonization process will play out in the future. In five years from now, we will be able to gradually assess the impact of what will happen on this front. Some of the concerns we have raised already is quality verification. In countries like Indonesia and Philippines, counterfeit drugs are still a major issue. Now how are we going to control the illegal trafficking of counterfeit drugs if the borders of these geographically complex archipelagos open up? We will also need to look at price levels between different coun-tries, as it would perhaps become easier and cheaper to import Novartis products from another market. This is food for thought for the future.

Thomas Weigold, COUNTRY PRESIDENT AND MANAGING DIRECTOR, NOVARTIS

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INTERVIEW WITH:

Juanito Luna, Founding President and CEO, PROSEL

Focus Reports: What was your initial vision when you started PROSEL in that garage 30 years ago?JUANITO LUNA: I had not finished college and saw my chances to climb the MNC echelons as very low back then. In my view, the only opportunity to get into product manage-ment and research, was to start on my own. I was not born to be in corporate manage-ment; I was born to be an entrepreneur.

My vision was to make new products, or variants of existing products, available to the patients. More than once, it were the doctors themselves asking for new alterna-tives to the MNCs’ products. Though the local industry may be strong today, it is worth mentioning that three decades ago the entire Philippine pharmaceutical industry was controlled by the MNCs.

The fact that, as a family-owned com-pany, we do not report to any investors, gave the flexibility to hire as many employ-ees as we felt necessary. While there are companies that are integrated new tech-nologies to reduce their workforce, we were the only company recruiting 108 under-graduates at once. From a personal perspec-tive, I was an undergraduate too. Now, I want them to have the opportunity to work. Today, PROSEL employs 256 people, which is a relatively high number compared to a turnover of less than PHP 200 million (roughly USD 4.5 million).

FR: Looking at your therapeutic focus, where do you see most growth coming from in the future?

JUANITO LUNA: For 17 years long, we were known to be the Prednisone company in the market. The name Prednisone –or Pred- would mean PROSEL and vice versa, to an extent were both names became inter-changeable. This is how popular our prod-ucts became.

With the earnings of this first line of products, we were able to invest in new areas. The fact that we launched our prod-ucts at the request of the doctors was a blessing. The Food and Drug Administra-tion (FDA) of the Philippines would release two to three of our products per year, while other companies were struggling to obtain approvals.

FR: Now that you are celebrating PROSEL’s 30th birthday, what do you consider to be the company’s main accomplishments?JUANITO LUNA: The fact that we were able to provide the medical field with products that were not available in the market is an accomplishment in itself. When we launched some of our first products, it was the medical community thanking us to come out with the right products at the right price. At that time, products were still being imported from abroad and marketed in the Philippines at premium prices. Yet, just like for any MNC, these suppliers would not have the flexibility to really adjust their products to local market needs.

For me, the doctors were the guides to the creation of our product portfolio. Today, all of our products have been intro-duced at their request. This approach alone

Juanito Luna, FOUNDING PRESIDENT AND CEO, PROSEL

Interview with: Juanito Luna, Founding President and CEO, PROSEL

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makes our products unique in the world. Our promise is one of a better sense of well-being. PROSEL is the owner of Pred Lines, the only company with the widest range of dosage strength of the steroid, Prednisone. Pred, as the product is called, is the most commonly used glucocorticoid for the treatment of sev-eral auto-immune diseases such as collagen diseases, vasculitis syndromes, gastrointes-tinal inflammatory diseases and renal auto-immune disease. The patients that use our products suffer from diseases such as cancer and asthma, and need a wide array of dosages to satisfy their needs.

PROSEL has been the only company in the Philippines that decided to put the price of the products on the trade boxes, a move that was not well received by the drugstores at first. Upon consultation with the drugstores, however, we adjusted the prices to take into account their margins. We realized that we needed to put a cap on our prices to ensure that the end user, the patient, would receive a low price.

FR: What else is in the cards for the future of PROSEL: manufacturing, an acquisition, … ?JUANITO LUNA: It certainly is not my desire to invest in manufacturing facilities. Manufac-turing activities are vulnerable and would increase the risk exposure of our organiza-tion.

We already received an offer out of India to buy out our company. However, it was my understanding that these investors were mainly interested in one of our products, rather than our entire company. If they only have an interest in one product that accounts for 70 per cent of our revenues, what will hap-pen to the rest of the staff?

Instead, we are now looking at converting the company into a foundation. This will be our next big move. As from next year, we will

start changing our marketing materials to efficiently and effectively approach the doc-tors. We will be highlighting our products with longer usage and make clearer distinc-tions between our product lines.

We will also become less dependent on Prednisone as our key brand. Internally, for instance, we already do not set sales targets for our staff for this product anymore. Simply put, each annual quota equals the sales of the previous year. Because of our prior focus on Prednisone we have lost the opportunity to capitalize on our other products. We need to diversify our organization and reduce this dependence.

As from next year, we will start as a new company! We will also isolate the vitamins business and create a so-called PROSEL net-working business. Rather than a pyramid marketing scheme, however, we have designed our own scheme called the Preferred Entrepreneur Representative and Associate Program (PERAP). Through PERAP, we aim to increase the entrepreneurial capabilities of the Filipinos.

Juanito Luna, FOUNDING PRESIDENT AND CEO, PROSEL

“When we launched some of our first products, it was the medical community thanking us to come out with the right products at the right price.”

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INTERVIEW WITH:

A.A. Santillana, Group Chairman & CEO, SV More, Philippines

Focus Reports: What motivated you to become the founder of SV More in the 1980s?A.A. SANTILLANA: I first joined the pharma-ceutical industry in 1971. For seven years, I worked in a multinational company as a marketing representative, up till the highest position in that company. I left in 1978 and moved into entrepreneurship.

Many of my previous col leagues enjoyed their stay with an MNC but when they finally retired, they started to real-ize that they had merely been employees rather than owners. It came to my mind that I would have to put up my own com-pany, which led to the birth of SV More in 1986.

Since 1986, we have grown from 11 people to close to 400 today. Having fin-ished our first journey of 25 years, we have started looking into the rapid changes we need to make to enter our next quarter of a century of existence. We are preparing for the next journey, where my two sons along with the Company’s senior managers, will be taking over the management of the company in two to three years from now.

FR: What makes you the most proud of these first 25 years?A.A. SANTILLANA: We have been helping young and intelligent Filipinos in realiz-ing their dreams of becoming a doctor. Already, we have supported 33 doctors in a combination of full-time scholars and those who subspecialize in specific fields.

We have provided them with grants. We played a role in the financial and eco-nomic support of these doctors, among other initiatives we have undertaken.

FR: SV More Group of Companies has grown rapidly in just 25 years. Can you elaborate on today’s structure of the group?A.A. SANTILLANA: We started with one com-pany only, and put up another two years later. These three main companies have their own subsidiaries. The main purpose of such structure is to decentralize con-trol from Metro Manila to the provinces. We find it very effective to transform, or convert, our key people into actual share-holders of these companies.

Thirty percent of the equity has been transferred to our staff. For every ten mil-lion pesos the subsidiary owns, they thus receive three million pesos. As a result, they will retire as owners rather than employees. We implemented that system after roughly five years of operations. We had to put this system in place to reward deserving employees too, and to ensure that they would stay with us in the future. You have to take good care of them.

This system has helped us send some of the children of our very poor employ-ees to school. Our driver, for example, has a daughter who is a pharmacist now. He would not have been able to do this with-out our support. Our love for our people makes us one of the proudest and success-ful companies in the industry.

A.A. Santillana, GROUP CHAIRMAN & CEO, SV MORE, PHILIPPINES

Interview with: A.A. Santillana, Group Chairman & CEO, SV More, Philippines

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How difficult was it for you to establish your name in the market?A.A. SANTILLANA: We had to develop the demand for our products. Apart from that, we needed the right people to represent us as our ambassadors in the market place. If we are properly represented, market the right products and have the right price and positioning, the rest follows.

In addition to that, we need to focus on continuously improving the quality of our products as well as their packaging.

We are one of the few companies that decided to have its own buildings nation-wide. We now have one in Davao and two in the Visayas aside from our main headquar-ters in Metro Manila.

FR: The Philippines is a pharmaceutical mar-ket where you can find medicines of both high quality and very poor quality. As for local manufacturers, how do you look at quality?A.A. SANTILLANA: First of all, we have to be careful in choosing who we work with. Hizon Laboratories and Lloyd Laboratories are world-class manufacturers. If you work with foreign manufacturers, you have to carefully select to ensure that they work according to quality standards. In India, for example, there are bad manufacturers in the region but also many very good ones. We are prepared to take on South Korean manufac-turers, which can be among the best.

FR: Why, after all these years, have you not decided to manufacture yourself?A.A. SANTILLANA: We are now in the process of entering that stage of our company’s life-cycle. For these first 25 years, we did not want to take up big loans to fund such investment, which is why we have waited till the point where we have sufficient resources to build our own facilities. Also, when we constructed our buildings in Min-danao and the Visayas, we did not loan a single cent.

Now we have reached the point where we can afford manufacturing without external funding. Self-sufficiency is very important to ensure that the operating cash remains unaffected. In three to five years, we should have completed our first manufacturing facility in collaboration with our Philippine-based manufacturers.

A.A. Santillana, GROUP CHAIRMAN & CEO, SV MORE, PHILIPPINES

Jean Paul D. Santillana, vice president - Overall MarketingOffice, S.V. More Group of Companies

Gemma Dela Cruz - Vice-President and Comptroller

Maxima Cabatic Executive - Vice-President and Chief Comptroller

Angel Paguia - Vice-President - Personnel Administration

Milette Hojilla - Senior Vice-President - Ma-terials Management & Procurement Office

Albert-Jan Santillana, senior vice presidentfor Real Property Adminis-tration, S.V. More Group of Companies

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85 Pharma.indd 85 20/05/2013 14:51

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85 Pharma.indd 85 20/05/2013 14:51

Company indexArup ................................................30, 31

Aspen .............................................12, 14

Astrazeneca ...................................11, 16

Cognizant .......................................20, 21

Delex Pharma International (DPI)...... 14

Department of Science and Technology 21

Deloitte ...........................................16, 24

Fda .........10, 14, 18, 33, 38, 39 40, 41, 42, 44

Generika .........................................17, 18

Globo Asiatico .................................... 12

Gsk ....................................................... 16

Hizon .................................................... 15

Ims ....................................................... 16

Janssen ..........................................32, 33

Lloyd ................................................15, 19

Merck ................................................... 18

MSD ................................................11, 16

National Kidney And Transplant Institute (NKTI) .................................................. 12

Novartis ............................... 10, 11, 16, 42

Novo Nordisk ........................................ 12

Pharmaceutical And Healthcare

Association Of The

Philippines (PHAP) .................. 10, 39, 40

Philippine Chamber Of The

Pharmaceutical Industry (Pcpi) .....10, 41

Philhealth ..........8, 9, 10, 18, 34, 36, 37, 43

Pointwest ................................... 20, 21, 27

Prosel ................................................... 44

RBC MDC ............................................ 17

Secretary Of Health ................... 8, 34, 35

Servier ................................................... 9

St. Luke’s Medical Center .................... 12

Sv More Group ......................... 15, 46, 47

Torrent ................................................. 13

TTSI ................................................20, 21

United Laboratories ............................ 14

Zuellig .................................................. 16

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