Page 12 - Retail Pharmacy November/Decemeber 2020

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW 10 NEWS IN FOCUS RETAIL PHARMACY • NOV/DEC 2020 Simon Tregeagle GENERAL MANAGER, MENTHOLATUM AUSTRALASIA The maker of pain-relief cream Deep Heat and other globally popular brands, one of them of 1890s vintage, is constantly innovating, its GM tells Retail Pharmacy. Simon, please tell us a little about yourself and your experience in the pharmaceutical sector. My family is my focus and I receive incredible joy watching my three children grow up, especially through their teenage years. I try to set a positive example to my children with work-life balance, showing them my strong work ethic and placing importance on relationships with people. My values in this regard haven’t changed since I graduated from university with a marketing degree, 27 years ago. Through hard work, always challenging myself and learning from every opportunity, I developed a career in the fast-moving consumer goods industry with some of the largest food brands in the Australian market. I was always interested in the pharmacy industry, so, when a position arose with Novartis, I grabbed the opportunity with great enthusiasm. I was later fortunate to be offered a position with Mentholatum Australasia and over the past 11 years have worked my way to the position of General Manager, which I thoroughly enjoy. I feel privileged working within Mentholatum, ‘making people’s lives better’ in an industry that is constantly innovating and making a real difference to people’s health. How has the business coped with Covid-19 and what changes did you have to make? We at Mentholatum have coped relatively well with the Covid-19 challenges. I have real empathy for those businesses and people that have been impacted and hope the country is through the worst. When Covid-19 impacted the community, our business developed a ... plan that focused on protecting our people, customers and operations via increased hygiene and social distancing measures. Most importantly, we’ve been able to keep our factory operating and producing product. I’m very grateful for and impressed by the hard work and dedication to the business from our people. The measured changes to our workplace have resulted in a large proportion of our people working from home, which has flowed onto the need for understanding how critical it is to keep everyone connected with each other and the business. Open, honest and consistent communication throughout our business has been critical. You have some iconic brands in your portfolio. What is the secret of their success? Our business is in a strong position, owning some brands that are well known and have been loved by Australians for many years. As an example, Deep Heat was launched, and has been made, in Australia since the year of the Melbourne Olympics, 1956, while another brand, Laxettes, has been made in Australia since the 1890s. But it’s not just the longevity of these brands, but also the emotional link they represent with consumers. When people ask where I work and I mention we make Deep Heat, I often get a hearty reply describing fond memories of using Deep Heat during sporting events. And it’s important for our pharmacy partners to know that we’ll continue to invest in our brands and you’ll see more and more support, with advertising on different channels, including major sporting events. What are the current priorities for Mentholatum Australasia? Mentholatum Australasia is part of a global company that manufactures and markets quality healthcare products in more than 150 countries worldwide. Our business owns established brands, including Deep Heat, Alpha Keri, Natural Instinct and Laxettes, and has access to a vast array of international brands through our parent business, Rohto Pharmaceuticals in Japan. Our strategic objective is ongoing growth by marketing innovative, trusted and best-in-class solutions with our strategic partners to improve the everyday health and wellbeing of our consumers. Using our local knowledge and autonomy together with our global corporate support, we’ll be growing our business from existing brands together with new brand launches. Our other key focus is our manufacturing capabilities. We’ve been manufacturing in Australia for more than 100 years and are committed to maintaining and continuously improving our TGA facility versus global standards. We’re acutely aware of the benefits our manufacturing provides the Melbourne community, and therefore we’ll continually invest in our capabilities to support existing products while simultaneously developing new product innovation. Our pharmacy partners will be seeing more product innovation very soon. What is your key message to pharmacists? The pharmacy industry is a key component of our business and we have a long heritage of working successfully with pharmacists and pharmacy businesses. To demonstrate this importance, our business employs a dedicated pharmacy sales team and territory managers that aim to support pharmacy needs and objectives. One of our strategic pillars of success is building strong partnerships, and we view pharmacists and their businesses as critical partners.