Chief Corporate Development Officer, Guy Clark shares his thoughts on ADVANZ PHARMA’s growth and investment strategy and how ADVANZ positions itself as the ‘go-to’ partner for M&A.
“Growth” is a word we tend to associate with the expansion of a company’s capital or assets organically over a prolonged period of time. However successful growth within the pharmaceutical industry is more often the result of careful strategic planning and investment. For ADVANZ PHARMA, it is a core driver that infiltrates every aspect of the organisation, from its products to its people, and it ultimately enables new opportunities, innovation and greater collaboration that would otherwise not be possible.
My role as Chief Corporate Development Officer means I help to fill the geographical and portfolio gaps which will grow ADVANZ PHARMA’s presence across Europe and the world through the acquisition of companies and products. It is via these acquisitions that we are able to strengthen our capabilities to become the go-to partner of choice for essential and complex medicines, in alignment with our wider business strategy. As a team, our objective in corporate development is to find the right opportunities that will continue to successfully grow ADVANZ PHARMA, while also establishing capabilities that will allow us to optimise our product offerings and, most crucially, serve patients who rely on our broad portfolio of critical medicines.
Growth doesn’t just hinge on investment. Our industry partnerships rely on credibility, trust and confidence, and we strive to build on these relationships and work within a leading network of collaborators to support the provision of essential medicines to our customers and, ultimately, to our patients. It is only through the diligence and hard work of our people that we have been able to create recent growth and establish a stronghold in key markets across Europe, as well as affirm our position with first-class industry partners.
As a company, our decision to move into the complex medicines space means that we are able to expand our pipeline to bring affordability and broadened patient access to a wide range of products in the European hospitals market. In fact, 2020 saw the emergence of two distinct business units, one of which is primarily focussed on Strategic Growth and the other on providing essential Established Products. The Strategic Growth business unit is continuously expanding and includes: enhanced versions of existing molecules that deliver cost and supply efficiencies for our customers; value-added medicines which generate incremental improvements to a medicine’s delivery that improve patients’ lives and, lastly, new chemical entities which deliver breakthrough solutions to healthcare and patient needs. Through the acquisition of Correvio Pharma last year, we significantly accelerated our ability to commercialise and develop these products, by inheriting an excellent team of over 80 individuals who have expertise throughout Europe in hospital channels and across several therapeutic areas, and they will continue to be a key focus for us moving forward.
While, as an organisation, we are expanding our horizons into this fast-growing part of the company, the foundation of our business still lies firmly in the Established Products unit, with a portfolio that has been acquired or developed by ADVANZ PHARMA over the last 30 years. This business supplies around 180 molecules and covers a wide variety of disease areas through a range of channels, including primary and secondary care, to over 100 countries across the world. We remain committed to ensuring these medicines reach the specialised patient populations who rely on them.
Our priority now is to ensure that these two business units continue to grow and provide essential medicines to our patients and customers. Each unit has a critical role in supporting the company’s future growth and stability, although they operate via different channels and require distinct commercial and operational strategies, they each work towards the common goal of improving the lives of patients that rely on our medicines. We strongly believe that there is a clear space for ADVANZ PHARMA to be the go-to-partner of choice in the European market, operating in the commercial space between generic organisations and the large innovator companies; it’s an exciting time to be part of a business that has so much potential to create its own niche.
This year is an incredibly important one for us as a company and, with new investment, we will be looking to shift up a gear in terms of pace and scale, driving more, larger acquisition and pipeline deals. There is no doubt in my mind that the coming months and years will be key to shaping the future of ADVANZ PHARMA. Growth isn’t something that happens overnight, we have a focussed, long-term strategy in place which drives us all forward in our day-to-day operations - to continue to meet unmet needs that currently exist and fill these gaps wherever possible. I am hugely excited about our future and very much look forward to seeing what we can achieve together.
