Pharmaceutical Executive Europe - October 2008 - (Page 34)

Ahmet Toksöz, board member, Sanovel Sanovel employs about 2500 people and has a portfolio of more than 150 products in critical therapeutic areas. produce more than 100 million packs, approximately 9% of the whole market. We would prefer to remain at 10% or 12% of the whole local produced volume. Of course we also have to stabilise our production as increasing too fast is dangerous. Last year we invested a lot and in the next two years we may repeat it. At the moment we have more than $50 million of annual turnover and it will increase accordingly. What is your product focus today? For the last several years we have focused on products for chronic diseases. We are not very strong in antibiotics, for example, or anti-inflammatory products, because in the early 2000s we did not aim to be the strongest company in the topselling pharmaceutical products in Turkey. So we expanded our product range in accordance with the worldwide growing segments such as cardiovascular products, cholesterol-lowering agents and CNS drugs. The market for these products was very narrow at that time, but we knew that life expectancy was increasing and that the market would expand. We believed that eventually people would care more and more about their health and well-being. Sanovel believes in the value of establishing its brands. To establish a brand, make it a leader in its own segment and keep it there requires a serious promotion both in pre-launch period and throughout the life cycle of the product. Only a dedicated field force of a certain size can achieve this. In terms of the way you’d like to position yourself for a customer, what is your vision? Our aim is to be a preferred manufacturer for the industry. We are not actively looking for new customers. We are very careful about extending the capacity. Our aim is not to have capacity alone; we want to avoid unused capacity costs. Given that more than 50% of the volume in the Turkish market is generics, how do you make yourself distinct from your competition? We are very focused on marketing and promotion. Each of our business units has at least one segment leader in its portfolio. Very much like the multinationals we compete with, our 10 leading products make up approximately 75% of our total turnover. These top 10 products are group leaders and sometimes we even surpass the sales of multinational originators. A good example is Lansor (lansoprazole), our gastrointestinal product. We are also Your sales and marketing team numbers more than 1200 people, the second largest pharmaceutical sales force in Turkey. What is the rationale for such a large team? 3 News The monthly round-up of European stories leaders in cholesterol-lowering agents with Ator (atorvastatin) and in antiinflammatory, where we have the topselling product, Majezik (flurbiprofen). How many products are you introducing this year? What kinds of 7 BioFutures Gerhard Symons on the dark side of Russian healthcare 37 Last words Who said what in pharma’s last four weeks 6 Calendar Upcoming events in Europe and around the world

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Pharmaceutical Executive Europe - October 2008

Pharmaceutical Executive Europe - October 2008 Contents News and Analysis Calendar BioFutures Strategy Fundamentals Executive Recruitment: Small Company, Big Career Executive Recruitment: Instant Pharma Named Patient Programmes Executive Review: Turkey

Pharmaceutical Executive Europe - October 2008

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