Local manufacturer, Genethics Pharmaceuticals Ltd, has been saving the Government millions of dollars by bringing "affordable generics" to the table, said its chief executive officer Anthony Aboud. "I think we were one of the first to bring to the table affordable generics. Of course, there are many, many now," Aboud said, whose company has been exhibiting at the Trade and Investment Convention (TIC) for the past 11 years of its existence. "So what the Government may pay $100 million or now, if they kept on the same path from 1995 to today, they'd be paying about $300 million. That is a fact. Those are real numbers," Aboud said. Genethics Pharmaceuticals is a registered supplier to the Chronic Disease Assistance Programme (CDAP). He drew the example of a Genethics product, Diaban, an anti-diabetic tablet, the brand name for which is Diamicron. He said Genethics manufactured Diaban with raw materials from Italy on the formulation. Initially, Diamicron was being sold for $1.65 a tablet. "It took us four years to get the Government to give Diaban a try. Dr Hamza Rafeeq was the then Minister of Health. We fight, we fight. I couldn't understand why they won't give us anything. They finally gave us a shot. The year they gave us a shot, Diamicron might have been selling for $1.40. We gave them a price of $0.80 cents. That is to show the advantage of a generic versus a brand," said Aboud, a chartered accountant by training.
Aboud is aware that big "pharma" companies "woo" doctors to favour their brands. "Doctors make the decisions. We got resistance from people making the decision to buy or not buy. Doctors may prefer to give it to this company, they prefer to give it to the big brand. I can't tell you why. Sometimes they go to some show in Las Vegas or the company treats them nice. It happens everywhere in the world, not just in Trinidad," said Aboud, in an interview two Fridays ago at the Hyatt Regency Trinidad hotel, Port-of-Spain, where TIC will be held for the second consecutive year. Nowadays, Aboud is smiling. Even though he's been at Genethics for the last 20 years, it's only in the last three years that the O'Meara Road, Arima-based company has "really" been making money. Aboud took over as CEO in January 1991 of Genethics Ltd at the behest of 14 investors, who had restructured the company, initially known as Leda & Company, with receiver Victor Herde. Aboud said he was vice-president/treasurer of a real estate company in South Florida prior to returning to Trinidad and that Genethics represented something different. "I built the company from scratch, so it has been a long 20 years," he said.
The name was changed to Genethics Pharmaceuticals to reflect the type of company it was. "We do import distribution as well as manufacturing," Aboud said. It started making products for Bristol-Myers Squibb, a global biopharmaceutical company, making Comtrex and Excedrin for the region. "Obviously, to do work for them, you have to lift the bar on your quality," said Aboud, adding that his company falls under Current Good Manufacturing Practices (CGMP) standard, the World Health Organisation and the Pan American Health Organisation. Genethics also reports to the Ministry of Health's Chemistry Food and Drug Division and the T&T Antibiotic Committee. Asked when did Genethics really become profitable, Aboud replied, "Three years ago." "The previous 17 years were difficult, challenging years."
How did the company survive? "Let's put it this way: I have worked all my life. I've worked since I was 16. I'm now 51. My wife has worked all her life. So over the years, we saved money. It was tough. We had 14 owners." Twenty years ago, Aboud had no stake in the business. He was given an option to buy into the company, an offer he took up over the years. "Eventually, I bought out the shareholders with the assistance of the banks. It is basically family-owned, but I am the majority owner," Aboud said.
That was five years ago. Prior to being majority owner of Genethics, Aboud said he couldn't control the company's destiny as the shareholders did not share his vision for the company's growth. "That's when I made the decision that I had to own this thing." He said the investors had pumped a lot of money into the business, but they wanted immediate returns. He said 15 per cent and 20 per cent duties on the importation of painkillers and the like it very difficult to import. "Pharma never had that protectionism," said Aboud, adding that being an accountant helped to run the company efficiently. "From day one, we had to be competitive to survive. That doesn't mean we were losing money. We really started making money three years ago." Aboud said 30 per cent of Genethics' plant is available for expansion, such as producing liquids: namely syrups. "We can make a liquid here of international quality, priced better than any imported liquid." He said 80 per cent of the company's production is pharmaceuticals, with the other 20 per cent representing healthcare products.
T&T is its "stomping ground," in relations to its sales, followed by Guyana, Barbados and Jamaica.
Since last January, Genethics hired Marketing & Distribution to handle its distribution. "We still do some higher end niche products. We have structured the company from a consumer product-based sales company to a manufacturing niche product sales-based company." Genethics has since 1995 produced a range of antibiotics for the India-based Ranbaxy Laboratories. And it's currently looking at developing products for three new lines: cosmetics, dermalogical and optical. Products which weren't making money were stopped.For instance, a 325 milligram aspirin for heart attacks was converted into an 81 milligram terra coated tablet called Genprin, which is on the CDAP list. "So, instead of making 30,000 tablets of aspirin a year, we now do close to three million tablets of terra coated aspirin, so the energy and the effort into making the aspirin has been converted into a different aspirin."