| In drug development, you may have
to spend over $I billion –Pfizer boss, Ngozi Edozien
By CHIDI NNADI
Monday, August 14, 2006
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•Edozien
Photo: Sun News Publishing |
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When pharmaceutical giant, Pfizer Global Pharmaceuticals,
needed someone who would come to West Africa to strengthen
its presence, particularly in Nigeria, the lot fell on Ms
Ngozi Oluwatoyin Edozien. Having proved her onion in planning
and development in the company, Pfizer believes she is the
best person to be sent to the sub-region. And for her, the
mission is one that must be accomplished.
Ngozi, who is the Managing Director of Pfizer Nigeria and
Regional Director East, Central, and Anglo-lusophone (ECAWA)
in an interview with Daily Sun in Lagos says as Pfizer is
number one drug company in the world she does not see any
reason it would not also be on top in the region she has been
posted to oversee.
Asked if this task would not be daunting for her as a woman,
she retorts: "I’ve things to do, I’ve targets
to achieve and I’m focusing on doing what I need to
do to achieve those set targets. I don’t have any issue
in being a woman." After all, she said the President
Olusegun Obasanjo administration had put women in sensitive
positions and they have delivered, insisting that being a
woman has nothing to do with one’s competence at work.
She also looks at Pfizer’s operations in Nigeria, its
deal with Neimeth and the controversy surrounding the company’s
controversial Trovan clinical trials in the Northern part
of the country over Meningitis cure in which some persons
were purported to have died. She said there was no proof to
this even as she unfolds other operational areas of Pfizer
and its contributions to mankind. Excerpts:
Background
I am Ngozi Edozien. I am the daughter of two wonderful people
who are well known, Prof. Joseph Edozien and Ms Modupe Edozien.
I was born in Ibadan here in Nigeria. I was a very, very small
person when the civil war started and we moved from Ibadan
at that time to the East.
After the civil war, my father went to the United States and
was a visiting professor of the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT). I later joined him in the US. I went to
a boarding school in a very, very cold place, in a school
called Philip Exeter Academy. And from there I went to the
Harvard and Radcliff College where I graduated with honours
with concentration in economics, social and political theory.
If you grew up in the US, you start up your professional career
very early.
So, I started working quite early, doing industrial banking.
And from the university, I went to the Harvard Business School
where I graduated with honours and became a consultant to
a company called McKinsey and Company Inc. I worked in this
company in the UK where I was doing mostly pharmaceutical,
industrial work and consumable for a couple of years. I later
worked in France also for McKinsey and Company, doing also
a lot of pharmaceutical and industrial work. I also worked
in a number of mergers and acquisitions. I lived in France
for about four and half years and one day I had a call saying
that Pfizer is looking for the head of strategic planning
and business development in New York.
I was interviewed and employed. And for about five years,
I worked as Vice President, planning and business development
for Pfizer. At a certain point in time in the company, we
carried out a research, trying to understand the position
of Pfizer in Africa and the Middle East, where we have greater
opportunities and the company reached a decision that we really
needed to re-enforce our business in Africa and the Middle
East. And they said you have done it in planning and business
development, but you needed to do more and we believe in you
so much, why not go up and do it. So, here I am.
The Pfizer staff I met
Here in Pfizer, we have people who are eager to see this organisation
take its rightful place in this industry.
Pfizer is an institution that is in business in the pharmaceutical
industry, but on the other hand the business actually allows
us to help people and to do great things for the people. And
when I think about the things that Pfizer has done across
the world and also in Africa, I feel very proud belonging
to this institution.
So, when I look at Pfizer in Nigeria or Pfizer in any of my
territories, I see it’s a Pfizer that has extra-ordinary
potentials to continue to contribute economically and to better
the lives of the people in this market. In many respects I
believe we have a way to grow to become the number one pharmaceutical
company in this region as we are in other parts of the world,
which is an interesting and exciting challenge because we
have so much to offer and so much to contribute.
Our operation in Nigeria
Pfizer has been in Nigeria since 1957 and we have operations
in a number of other African countries. We have had our commitment
felt by our willingness to do philanthropic work.
What happened was that many companies had to withdraw here
in the late 90s. Nigeria and many other African countries
went through quite some turbulent times from the economic
and political point of view. And Pfizer looked at the situation
like all other companies. You have to decide whether you will
continue to invest more or to wait for a time when you will
renew your investment.
We then looked at the situation and what our business required
and we felt it was not the time to continue to make additional
investments. In this view, we were to divest in plant and
equipment, but to maintain our field marketing, medical and
educational presence in the market. What we actually did was
that we sold to the past management of the company in a management
buy-out, in plant and equipment. And we also gave those individuals
a licence that is called a license and supply agreement. So,
they had the right to produce locally some of the older brands
of Pfizer, which we have been introducing locally since the
inception of the company such as Combatrin.
What we are trying to do is that all the new brands we have
that have been in the core Pfizer portfolio of innovation
like Celebrex, we keep them in our own entity, which we continue
to call Pfizer Specialties Limited.
So, Neimeth is not Pfizer, Neimeth is the company that acquired
the plant and equipment of Pfizer when we chose to divest
in our plant and equipment. They are also the holder of a
licence and supply agreement to some of the brands, but Pfizer
maintains the whole activities to market the brand, to give
medical information about the brand, to register the products
and you will find out that most of the registration certificates
were made in Pfizer’s name. So, you cannot say that
Pfizer left Nigeria; we have been here since 1957.
The Trovan clinical trials
It is one of the press statements we have given out to explain
the situation. You will find out that we are a company that
is committed to innovation, we are a company that is committed
to research and development and the core area of research
and development is, indeed, clinical trial work. We are also
a company that is committed to assisting people and countries
in need like in the Tsunami Disaster Relief, in the work we
do in Africa concerning HIV/AIDS, we are a company that helps
during disasters.
At a time, Nigeria was experiencing one of the worst Meningitis
outbreak that has ever occurred in the country. Meningitis
is a disease that I believe the statistics is about seven
out of every individual that contracts the disease die. So,
we had a drug at the last stage of development and actually
had an approval and the drug had actually been proved to have
effectiveness on Meningitis. We made two applications and
one was a philanthropic application to provide this drug to
do essential work, it was not a clinical trial, but a study.
We did not pursue the clinical trial, what we did was that
the government felt when the application was made to the Ministry
of Health and NAFDAC to be able to assist in this Meningitis
outbreak and that was granted. So, patients were treated,
there was a control group and it was conducted under all ethical
guidelines according to what we have in the company and the
clinical records that existed in the country at that time.
And we have the necessary documentation and the approvals
that we received to actually run this programme in Kano Teaching
Hospital. So, the allegations that the drug caused death,
there was actually no documented evidence that the drug caused
death in anyway. Out of the 100 persons that were treated
at the time, I believe the statistics was that there were
five deaths. This is a disease that normally you will actually
have 60 per cent death. So, there were indications that the
drug actually performed better in saving lives at the time
and that evidence is available.
Fake and substandard drugs in Nigeria
No one in our industry will condone such behaviour. The pharmaceutical
industry is one of the industries that have had tremendous
growth. I think what is needed is to have a strong regulatory
framework, which NAFDAC is trying to put in place. It has
done a tremendous job, but we need appropriate compliance
to these rules and regulations. But we unfortunately have
individuals who are not focused to being compliant to the
laws that are put in place. It is also very difficult when
you don’t have a strong distribution chain. So, as long
as we have this incident where we have markets, where such
uncontrolled products are made available, it is difficult
to manage.
Protecting our products from faking
We work closely with NAFDAC any time we identify an issue
that has been recorded to take appropriate action. We also
have security features on our products. We also give out information
to people on how to identify our products and the one that
is not. We have very tight control in terms of what comes
into Nigeria.
For example, our plant will not release any product to any
individual that is not coming from Pfizer. In fact, we are
the only legal importer of Pfizer products into this country.
Under the strict definition of what NAFDAC considers counterfeit
drugs is that you are importing a drug you are not the legal
importer of, which you are not the owner of the registration,
that is what is considered fake or counterfeit drug. On one
hand, we try to control our distribution channel, to ensure
that only registered products are coming into the country
while on the other hand, we will continue to monitor the market
and report our findings to the appropriate bodies.
And we also have a solid network for corporate security as
many companies do because we do recognise that many of these
products may come in from countries such as China or India
or wherever. We also have a very strong security and infrastructure
that work overseas with other people to identify these perpetrators.
We have a number of people, I am sure of one or two, we have
actually prosecuted that were known to have in different countries
tried to export Pfizer counterfeit products. So, we are working
with our plants, we have security features on our products
and we work with the local regulatory bodies to try to ensure
they don’t fake our product lines.
Why we produce restrictive drugs
Pfizer is a company that focuses on research and development
in goods and pharmaceuticals. So, the over-the-counter drugs
are not treating diseases that require research and development.
So, we focus on intro-infector, bacteria infection, cancer,
HIV/AIDS; these are diseases that require significant level
of research to identify the appropriate treatment. We are
a prescription drug company, we are an innovation company
and we are R&D company.
We, in fact, divested of what we call our consumer health
division because if you look at Pfizer, we are a company with
over $60 billion revenue and more than 90 per cent of the
revenue come from prescription drugs and things that are R&D
focused.
Pfizer and Nigerians
You asked how our activities have benefited Nigeria specifically?
All Nigerians are exposed to cancer, they are exposed to infectious
diseases, they are exposed to Glaucoma, they are exposed to
different diseases that are within our research target. So,
we have focused on diseases that Nigerians have as well as
benefiting the people in the researches that we do. We also
have some programmes we are working on Malaria. We have a
number of trials on Malaria, which is a disease in most tropical
and developing countries.
And you know that about 35 per cent of adult Nigerians have
been identified to be hypertensive and the black race suffer
a lot from diabetics. There are also eye diseases that can
give you Glaucoma. These are the areas in which Pfizer does
a lot of researches and the product areas we have. And you
may have probably read that there are increasing incidents
of cancer. And Pfizer has the treatment for cancer and Nigeria
is benefiting from the R & D of Pfizer because we make
available all the products for the treatment of these diseases
available in Nigeria. We are just launching in Nigeria a product
called Caduet, which is a drug for people who are hypertensive
and who may have incidents of heart disease.
Efficacy of our products
Like all pharmaceutical companies, we believe very strongly
in backing up any claim that we make on a product with appropriate
research and clinical trials. So, at any point in time we
provide that information readily to the physicians, health-care
practitioners. There is no claim on a Pfizer product that
cannot be backed up with evidence of the efficacy.
Philanthropy
One of the things we do is to ensure longer and healthy life
for the people. And one of the things we have to do is to
ensure that the people actually have access to medicine. Yes,
on one hand, we have commercialized our products, but on the
other hand, we are committed to helping those who are also
in need.
So, our partnership has been with a number of governments
to actually provide access to diseases that take life and
that partnership has to do with partnering with physicians
for them to be able to provide the right information to patients.
There is a wide range of such partnerships like the International
Glaucoma Initiative, where we have practically tried to achieve
the eradication of Glaucoma in Tanzania.
We also have a number of programmes in the African continent
between the governments, and the NGOs, trying to make things
happen. Tuberculosis partnership is also another example.
And I am happy to say that Nigeria is leading in our partnership
initiative. We have partnered with Uganda to bring education
and training in infectious diseases to physicians, which many
Nigerians benefited from.
Drugs development and accessibility
It is important to recognise that access means a lot of things.
You see, drug development takes about 10 to 20 years before
it gets to the market. And before you achieve this, you may
have invested close to $1 billion. So, it is difficult to
say we are going to be a total philanthropic organisation
because we actually need to make revenue in order to continue
in what we are doing. Like you mentioned, we have invested
close to $8 billion on R & D each year. So, definitely
you have to raise fund from what you are doing, otherwise
you won’t be able to continue to look for drugs for
diseases.
Challenge as a woman
I have things to do, I have targets to achieve and I’m
focusing on doing what I need to do to achieve those set targets.
I don’t have any issue in being a woman. So, all issues
have to be general issues, otherwise they are not mine. It
is true that we are in a country that may often not put a
woman in leadership position. But, I think, this is changing
because we now have the Minister of Solid Minerals who is
now Minister of Education; Minister of Finance and later Minister
of Foreign Affairs and Dr Dora Akunyili, who is also another
example of a very strong woman leader. So, I know that I have
things to do and mine is to get them done irrespective of
gender.
Management philosophy
I am very performance driven. That is the most important thing,
you set targets, you set objectives and as a manager you try
to meet these objectives.
Marketing strategy
We are known to be an innovative pharmaceutical company, educating
health-care practitioners and the public. So, the core of
our marketing strategy is to, one, ensure that we demonstrate
the difference in our products, to show that they are innovative,
they are efficacious and they are safe.
The second thing we focus on is educating our health-care
professionals, who we want to make sure they understand and
hope the products get to the market. And they are taking these
messages about the products to the market and the patients.
Economy
I think one of the biggest challenge Pfizer in Nigeria, or
rather all pharmaceutical companies in Nigeria have is one
of the things required for this industry to work very well.
That is, we must have solid network of public and private
hospitals and institutions. I think the government has recognised
this. So, we all suffer from that if we do not have a solid
network of hospitals, clinics, both private and public. Two,
this industry requires some sort of ability to fund health-care.
At this point in time, about 65 per cent to 70 per cent of
what is spent on health is private-out-of-pocket. So, it is
very important that the government tries to put in place some
kind of health funding infrastructure. Also, this industry
requires functioning very well with a solid distribution system.
I think this is one area there is still need to be some advancement.
And I know that NAFDAC is quite passionate about this.
Building another plant
It is always the hope of any country manager in any country
to manufacture. But one thing that is important to understand
about the pharmaceutical industry is that the industry is
upstream and not downstream. By that I mean the value we have
in research and development, the education, the manufacturing
we do, are not the core of what we do in the industry. But
if it is imperative that I have to build this for Nigeria,
why not?
Role model
My role models are really my parents because I find out that
they are people who have very good value of integrity, they
are people who are very forward and have value in giving and
doing good. And they believe in going forward in anything
they are doing so long they are right and good for other people.
Unwinding
Sure, why not? We all have to unwind. I come straight to the
office and work hard, that’s okay.
Favourite food
You know where I come from, Onitsha. We eat the Nsala soup,
white soup and pounded yam. But I am in the healthcare industry,
so, I do watch my "weight."
Our goal
Our company is number one company in the world. So, I don’t
see any reason we should not be the number one pharmaceutical
company in Nigeria and in the other markets in which we operate.
The second thing is that our company is committed to making
economic and social contributions in the countries in which
we operate. So, I do not see why we should not be able to
do so in Nigeria. We are committed to ensuring that we provide
opportunities for growth and development. So, I don’t
think I will do a different thing in Nigeria.
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