Read the Conversation
EF: What was your mission when you started back in 2017?
JN: For more than several years, I worked for Janssen Pharmaceuticals and J&J as a Marketing & Sales Director; however, the opportunity presented itself to head a joint venture between two German companies. After having spent a decade building this company, which changed ownership twice, first being acquired by Nycomed and then by Takeda, I had felt I had walked quite the journey. The company was performing well; I had built a strong team around me and had accomplished my goals. Being knowledgeable of the market and the senior managers, Acino offered me the job as Regional Director- English Speaking Africa. After becoming aware of Takeda’s strategy of operations moving forward, I decided to accept the position offered by Acino South Africa as their type of operation, which allows the business to compete in several key segments across the healthcare market, aligned with my endeavours.
EF: Could you describe how you manage the different business units in Acino? How have they evolved since you began your tenure as the Regional Director?
JN: We specialize in being the ideal partner to pharmaceutical companies looking to invest in South Africa (SA) and Central East Africa and Mauritius (CEAM). We compete in several segments of the healthcare market, which includes a small cosmetic range which we are investing in and launching this year, in SA and CEAM. When I arrived, Acino’s Litha Pharma only had two divisions, which was not optimal. Today, we have four focused Business Units with a very collaborative multi-faceted approach.
Under my direction, I brought new leadership into the organization, thus, strengthening our offering to the sector and the continent. For instance, our General Manager for exports spends much time in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, and Mauritius; therefore, he understands the needs of all our businesses, exports, and devices within these markets. Another strategy was to divide what we once called our Speciality Business into Speciality and OTC, which gave each of those divisions more focus.
An equally important strategy was the creation of a medical team over a two years span. When I initially joined Acino, the company had no medical team. Now, we do. We appointed an experienced Medical Director who appointed a strong team of Medical Advisors that are sympathetic and empathetic to patients, which is crucial to enhance our commercial strategy. We have a team of MSL’s who spend most of their time talking to doctors around the diseases and where our products fit in. Our team of nurses work with other nurses and interact with patients that need to inject themselves. We train the patients, and we understand side effects. We can walk them through the process until they are comfortable doing it themselves. None of this can happen unless the doctor and the patient consent to this kind of interaction, so we are an extension of the healthcare professional. Compliance is critical to all our processes. We also have a strong administrative team that helps patients to provide the right information for reimbursement. Our business diversity allows us to balance where if one aspect of our business is not doing well, we can shift focus. At the moment, there is an increased focus towards our medical device company as it is currently quicker to launch medical devices that are CE certified. We are incredibly proud of the fact that we are a certified rule BBBEE level 1. All of this makes us an ideal partner for multinationals that are looking for a local pharma company to launch their products.
EF: In your opinion, what makes the South African healthcare challenges different from that of other countries?
JN: There are many aspects to this. First, we want to build a sustainable business, which means we have to fulfill patient and HCP’s needs at an affordable price. Single Exit Price legislation doesn’t allow us to discount, to bonus, or to give free drugs, so we must find a solution to this. This limits pharma companies in bringing inexpensive drugs to treat rare diseases as we have other problems we need to deal with first. In South Africa, we have HIV, high infant mortality, TB and basic diseases like diarrhea. We have a high rate of trauma that our medical professionals need to deal with daily: gunshot wounds, stabbings, assaults, and rape victims. The combination of these challenges makes our country very unique.
EF: What opportunities are you looking in to grow Acino SA?
JN: Firstly, lets clearly understand the high unemployment rate and weak economy in South Africa. As citizens, we all have a responsibility to build our country. Our focus was to create jobs, as this would then result in improving our business results for the medium to long term. Investments had to be made but I am glad to report we did it in the short term. We have made substantial investments in achieving level 1 B-BBEE accreditation. In order to achieve this, we focused on creating employment. Our Device Business won a tender that created 128 jobs, our investment in learnerships is growing as a source of skills for the future and the YES initiative launched by our President Cyril Ramaphosa has brought skills to much needed communities. We acquired the company which manufactures the DNA kits, Acino Forensics. We manufacture about 38 different kits and will be launching 2 to 4 new ones this year, determined by the specifications of the procurer. We supply different countries, governments and private institutions. It is not a product that can be bought off the shelf. The procurer decides what they need, and we develop the products for them. We are starting to expand our geographical boundaries and will enter Europe this year. It’s moving outside the criminal justice system and more into requirements for labs. It is a really exciting area that we have invested quite a bit in developing.
Our ideal partners are multinationals. If a company is looking to package a product, launch a new range of products or medical devices locally, we are the people to talk to.
We launched our OTC division in September 2018 with a new Leadership Team. Our BU Head joined us earlier in 2018 for us to develop the right strategy. The OTC business gained traction in the second half of 2019 because we recognized and focused on the needs of our customers and patients and on long term goals.
My team researched different models in the market, and we worked on our own strategic model by adapting to key customer needs in the market. We started with our specialty business, which has been vital for us. From my experience with multinationals, we are both different and unique (Level 1 B-BBEE at our core); we have our export business into Africa, an Acino business supplied out of Switzerland and are very flexible in our business modelling.
With all we have going on, we must have a very controlled approach. If we control our growth, we will be successful but if we grow too fast, we could run into problems with supply and demand.
EF: How do you make those decisions around growth and focus? How do you prioritize?
Every business unit has leadership, a person in charge that purely focuses on that business and develops a strategic plan, that we review every six months, and we are focused. For example, if we don’t have expertise in women’s health, we find a partner who does. When it comes to OTC, we are very strong in the Gastro, Multivitamin and CV markets. We are entering the constipation market, and we are looking at other products within the OTC environment. The cold and flu market is really tough: we have a small cold & flu portfolio, but we need to make an acquisition to bolster that. The bottom line is that all our business units have to have a focus.
EF: What was the first priority you focused on coming into Acino?
JN: The first priority was to meet the customers (internal and external), introduce myself, and manage my transition. I had to understand their perspective and the reputation of Litha pharma, the company Acino acquired.
How did we do business and how did they view the company? Internally, I wanted to look at the assets and products we had and strategize from there. We know what the customers want. Then it was just a matter of taking tangible assets and partnerships to move forward. It was a parallel process, but it didn’t happen overnight. People are your greatest assets. However, I also believe it’s vital to success to view things in a new light and embrace change in your life. If you surround yourself with people who have the knowledge, experience, and strength you might lack, you’re going to be successful. I play people to their strengths and learn from all the people around me.
The key was to develop a strategy, build a new structure and drive implementation.
EF: How would you define the multinational of the future?
JN: Big pharma seems to be transitioning into focused Oncology and Rare Diseases organizations. I believe it a necessity that we find treatments for rare diseases and new emerging viruses . However, this also provides a great opportunity to partner with these multinationals with the parts of their businesses that they shifted focus from have moved on from. There will always be a need in emerging economies.
EF: Could you tell us about the recent acquisition with Takeda?
JN: Acino’s focus has been on delivering quality medicines into selected emerging markets. The recent acquisition of Takeda assets has bolstered our offering in SA. It was an important acquisition and the right fit. We were able to accommodate the people, the intellectual property, and therefore, focus on the CNS business going forward. We had a CNS and Pain business in SA which has since become bigger, thus making sense of the acquisition.
EF: How do you attract talent to come to your team and your company?
JN: It is very important to have strong networks within the industry. My role can’t be done sitting behind a desk. You need to have a network of people that you develop over time. For example, when I go to a meeting or congress, I will observe who is there and how they interact. What other CEOs or marketing directors are meeting with them? Those are the people I’d hire; I dislike people who hide behind their desks. I encourage all my people to go out and interact with the customer. You need to establish relationships and that’s what makes the difference. If there’s a gap that needs to be filled, I know the people I want because I’ve already interacted with them.
EF: What does the future look like for you for geographical expansion in Africa?
JN: Our focus will be on countries like Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Namibia, Mauritius because we have defined them as strategic countries, however, we will not ignore other countries if opportunity presents itself. We must start somewhere but the cost of doing business is increasing. We need to register products and the cost of registering is increasing with in-house resourcing, countries cost, external resourcing. Because of this, I would favor the partner approach if it makes business sense.
EF: How do you see South Africa as a priority from a global agenda perspective?
JN: There is no doubt that South Africa is facing strong economic headwinds. The exchange rate is declining and over a period of time the Rand will weaken further on average. Therefore, we must not get too exposed to foreign exchange. We can do this in a number of ways: local manufacturing and local acquisitions. We don’t always need to import from first world countries at an unaffordable cost. Albeit slow growth, we are growing and I consider it the duty and the responsibility of the many GMs, CEOs, CFOs, etc., in the country to help drive the economy. In the two years I’ve been here, my biggest success is that I have added more than 128 new jobs in our factory alone; some are permanent, and some are contractual. Most importantly, we gave people hope over Christmas. When we did the acquisition of Takeda, I sat with the employees and told them that they were coming across with the acquisition. Imagine going home not knowing you had a job in 2020 in a country with such a high unemployment rate. It is not just about the double-digit growth, top or bottom lines, and big returns to investors. The human element that drives the investment is critical and it needs to grow. I am very proud of our BBBEE level 1 status which was assisted through the YES initiative that we invested quite heavily in. We believe we can uplift communities. If everyone did their part, we would have a completely different environment. If the multinationals embraced change in South Africa and had a focus on B-BBEE, we’re all going to benefit. I am happy to engage any management on how to advance their B-BBEE status in South Africa.
EF: What is absolutely vital for Acino to grow?
JN: In order for a business to sustain its growth, it must be profitable and that is vital for any business. Acino’s MISSION2020, our global initiative, helps us to think differently and transform our business. The principles behind MISSION2020 is our DNA. I have 11 teams across my organization, and I gave them a challenge to come up with some ideas that will grow our topline, manage our expenses and improve productivity. The Patient, HCP and Customer remains core to what we do. The results are exemplary. We live in a stressful society, so we need projects that help manage stress and keep people motivated. We have initiatives like company training days, having fun, promotional items. We have a canteen that we are transitioning to serve a healthier menu. The team themselves have petrol cards that get cash back from fueling at the same fuel station. It’s not the amount of money; it’s the mindset. We run a three- month trial period for these initiatives. We run surveys and metrics to see the effectiveness of each project.
EF: There is a concept in business management called the iron triangle where you can only choose two qualities: cheap, fast, and good. Which two variables would you pick?
JN: Fast and good, primarily, but as cheap as possible.
EF: Is there any final message you would like to share?
JN: We are a multinational, but we act as a local company as indicated by our BBBEE level 1 rating. We have a very localized strategy that differentiates us from other multinationals. It’s important to focus our business by looking at the people and the products and finding a healthy synergy and balance.
