Page 47 - Retail Pharmacy November/Decemeber 2020

Rising to face the challenge Dennis Bastas, Chair and CEO, Arrotex Pharmaceuticals A once-in-a century global pandemic was the backdrop for Arrotex’s first year in full operation after the completion of the merger of Arrow and Apotex in July 2019. The merger created Australia’s largest pharmaceutical company. In the past year, Arrotex distributed about 30 per cent of all the PBS drugs dispensed by Australian pharmacies. A task that would have been challenging at the best of times was made exponentially harder as we found ourselves dealing with global supply shortages, local panic buying, union blockages and staff all trying to work remotely from home. As in all good stories of challenging times, the team at Arrotex rose to face all these challenges and ensure that one of the most important elements of daily Australian life, access to medications for chronic conditions, went on uninterrupted. All staff at Arrotex feel extremely proud to have worked behind Change brings opportunity for growth Anish Patel, General Manager ANZ, GSK Consumer Healthcare 2020 has been an extraordinary year. We’re living through what will likely be looked back on as a historic period of collective change – broadly, but also for our industry. Healthcare has been at the forefront this year as Australia tackled the impact of bushfires and Covid-19: very different crises that both challenged and changed our businesses as well as the communities and consumers we serve, putting access to healthcare products and services front and centre. At the same time, we’ve managed change we knew was coming: from helping people navigate the modified- release paracetamol up-schedule at the height of the pandemic, to launching new products. And we’ve seen issues that were already there accelerated, such as inequality, sustainability the scenes to support the true heroes of Australia’s pandemic response, our great Aussie pharmacists. Their commitment to keep pharmacies open, when many local doctors’ clinics and allied health practices had closed, was the most important action taken by a group of community healthcare professionals to keep Australia from slipping into an even more severe health crisis. The medicines millions of Australians take every day to treat chronic physical and mental conditions are responsible for making Australia one of the healthiest places by life expectancy in the world, but such basic essentials could have been denied us if our pharmacies had decided to close, or our international supply lines had been cut off. In April and May, due to nationalistic concerns in India and parts of Europe about drug availability, many of our international manufacturers were told to limit the supply of some key drugs to international customers until governments in those countries were satisfied that their national needs were first met. In unprecedented times we encounter unprecedented challenges. In my 20 years of operating pharmaceutical and digital disruption. We’re extremely proud of the agility and collaboration our industry has demonstrated as we continue to support Australians, despite the changing environment. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you, pharmacists and pharmacy assistants, who’ve been on the frontline tirelessly adapting and supporting your communities. Since the pandemic began, we’ve been actively exploring ways to help, with our science and expertise, while managing the health and wellbeing of our people and our global supply chains to ensure we’re able to deliver for customers, patients and consumers who depend on our products. Globally, GSK is supporting research and production of candidate Covid-19 vaccines. We’re collaborating with companies and research groups across the world, working on promising candidates using our innovative vaccine adjuvant technology. And we’ve confirmed our intention to manufacture one billion doses of our pandemic vaccine adjuvant system ANNUAL REPORT 45 businesses, I had never expected to see a time when Australia was at risk from international supply restraints. It certainly has highlighted the sovereign risk that exists for all Australians requiring chronic-condition medication when we realise that all but a small amount of our pharmaceutical requirements is met by international manufacturers. As an Australian owned company, Arrotex has begun to actively engage with the federal departments of industry and health to address these critical insights and concerns, and to look for a long term solution to Australia’s sovereign manufacturing risks, creating a more robust infrastructure that will help reduce our exposure to global shocks such as Covid-19. As I look back on the year and gratefully acknowledge that our entire health system rose to the pandemic’s challenge, I’m confident that all Australians can look to the future with renewed optimism. We should all remain acutely aware that, as a nation, we were ill prepared for what the pandemic wrought and that we must heed the lessons of 2020 to ensure we are better equipped to face any future global health challenge. in 2021 to support the development of multiple adjuvanted Covid-19 vaccine candidates. We also took action to help manage extremely high demand for our consumer healthcare products, such as Panadol, when Covid-19 restrictions sparked stockpiling around the nation. This included introducing several measures to ensure continuity of supply for our products, such as increased local production and air freight, as well as implementing longer- term solutions to enhance supply chain capacity that will support future growth and provide us with greater visibility and agility to respond to customer and consumer needs as they change and evolve. Change is an opportunity for growth. As we consider the impact of the past 12 months and look to the future, there are some exciting opportunities in pharmacy. Australian consumers are increasingly taking charge of their health and healthcare decisions, with the rise of self-care – fuelled by an ageing population, access to information and a growing interest in preventative health – RETAIL PHARMACY • NOV/DEC 2020