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W- Mr Sami Kiresepi, Vice Chairman of Santa Farma İlaç, could you please tell us more about yourself? Also, could you give information about the work arrangements introduced for the pandemic?

S.K.- Having received my bachelor’s degree at American University Kogod School of Business, I obtained my MBA degree at Brandeis University International. I started my professional career at Johnson & Johnson in the USA in 2001. I functioned as a Commercial Marketing Assistant, Assistant Marketing Manager and Product Manager respectively. In 2006, I joined Santa Farma where I acted as the Product Manager, Regional Promotion Manager, Marketing Manager, Marketing Director and Strategic Planning Director respectively. I have been acting as the Vice Chairman of Strategic Planning and Operations since 2018.

It’s been around 5 months since the global pandemic erupted in our country in March.

Due to the strategic importance of our industry, our production plant remained operational without any interruption. Thanks to the comprehensive measures and commitment of our employees, there is no positive case yet.

Following the outbreak of the pandemic, we wanted our field employees to abandon the field on March 16. We continued by asking our head office and marketing centre employees to work from home on March 18. Meanwhile, we had our employees with chronic diseases as well as pregnant and breastfeeding employees work from home.

We introduced a number of regulations for the R&D centre and production plant.

We started to take the temperature of employees as soon as they arrived to work. In order to reduce the congestion at the dining room, we decided to spread the meal times and change the seating order. We placed social distancing signs at the common areas. We instructed the employees to work from home to the extent possible based on their functions. We cut the capacity of shuttle buses by half.

The aim of those measures was to minimize the risk of contagion by reducing the number of employees allowed to remain in the same environment. Also, we created emergency action plans and offered training on the measures to be taken to fight against Covid-19. We strictly followed the updates made by the Ministry of Health.

We made increasing efforts to promote hygiene at the head office and the plant.

Our crisis management team has made coordinated efforts right from the beginning of the pandemic. And we have prioritized keeping in close contact with our employees.

As of June, we have made our preparations to ensure that our staff may come back to work safely by informing our employees of all steps. Hence, we have started to allow our head office and marketing centre employees to work at the office by rotation.

Our priority has been the health of our employees. As a matter of fact, we have proven our commitment to offering healthy services to health by qualifying for TSE Covid-19 Safe Production Certificate as a result of the audits.

I would like to express my thanks to all Santa Farma employees for their commitment to the measures in these challenging times.

W- Santa Farma is distinguished for its new generation working conditions. Could you please tell us about the practices adopted in your company?

S.K.- We aim to be the great place to work as one of the most popular, inspiring and innovative Turkish pharmaceutical companies in 2024 which will mark the 80^th year of our company.

Our human resources policy is based on respect for the individual, openness to development, rational power, and respect for the work, workplace and community. We prioritize projects which will meet the expectations of the new generation and increase employee satisfaction. We believe in the importance of creating a good balance between business and private life. Last year, we launched ‘Harekete Geç’ campaign for our employees and their families. Thanks to this campaign, we support our employees and their families on various matters including cultural and artistic activities, nutrition, sports, stress management, parenting and childcare advisory services. Also, employees who have a child attending the kindergarten and first grade at primary school are given a half-day leave during the back-to-school and end-of-school days so that they can share the excitement and joy of their children.

Santa Farma initiated a Master’s Degree Project in collaboration with Bahçeşehir University under EKOL Academy in 2017. Since then, 10 employees of Santa Farma have participated in the Master’s Degree Project which is intended to support the personal development and academic improvement of employees with a promising potential for the future. Also, Bahçeşehir University offers special discounts for all employees of Santa Farma who choose to pursue a master’s degree in business administration (MBA) and attend other master’s degree programmes. Also, we admit students from Bahçeşehir University for internship under the CO-OP project. We introduced Mentree, a mentoring programme, in 2018 with a view to contributing to the development of our employees while improving our corporate competencies at the same time. This is the third year of the project. Our directors and managers who volunteer for acting as mentors take ownership of the development of the mentees through one-to-one meetings held for 6 months. This programme is highly popular with the employees. It allows them to work with the managers of different functions and learn to evaluate incidents through different points of view. Also, we implement flexible working hours and Casual Friday for two years.

W- The media reports that your company increased its turnover by 45 per cent in 2019 and achieved your targets for the relevant year. What is the key to success and what is your forecast for the industry considering the impact of the pandemic in 2020?

S.K- Yes, that’s true. Santa Farma takes the 4^th rank in terms of growth rates among the most influential 25 pharmaceutical companies according to the figures for 2019. We owe this success to our long standing efforts and synergy. The production team, medical representatives and regional managers, and hundreds of employees assigned at the head office made great contributions to our success. You cannot do this out of the blue in pharmaceutical industry. We are striving to achieve our goals for many years. We have a good product portfolio and continue to improve the portfolio by launching new products. We have a site team of 525 professionals. This team is a great asset. We increase the number and qualifications of our site and head office employees every year. And this brings success. It would be unfair to limit our success to the pharmaceutical industry. Our success is recognized in the results of “500 Major Conglomerates in Turkey” survey which is conducted to ascertain the largest industrial corporations since 1968. In 2018, we ranked as the 461^st largest industrial enterprise in ISO 500 list. We rose by 86 levels to become the 375^th largest industrial enterprise in 2019.

We made a good start in 2020. We grew by around 35% in the first two months. This was followed with the outbreak of the pandemic in March. We decided to have our site and head office employees work from home in the middle of the same month. This went on until we introduced a very limited ‘back-to-work’ plan in June. But nothing was the same. People were scared to go to hospitals and other medical institutions such as family healthcare centres. They avoid going to medical institutions unless they have a really serious problem. There is a dramatic decrease in the number of patients going to polyclinics. Hospitals give appointments to a limited number of patients. This is the same as of July. It seems this will be the trend for a while and nothing will be the same. As for the industry, the number of boxes sold dropped by around 25% in April and May when compared to the same period in the previous year. Still, we are dealing with the challenges of this period in a truly stable and calm manner. Santa Farma has always managed to turn challenges into positive results. We will do the same and continue to offer healthy services to health with our team.

W- Well, you have made significant contributions to localization. Could you tell us about your investments and export targets?

S.K.- As one of the prominent pharmaceutical companies in Turkey, Santa Farma invested EUR 150 million in its state-of-the-art production plant which was commissioned for the benefit of Turkish pharmaceutical industry with a closed space of 43 thousand sqm in Dilovası, Kocaeli in 2015.

The manufacturing plant which boasts of the capacity to manufacture annually 150 million boxes in a single shift based on EU-GMP, TR-GMP and Jordanian GMP certificates not only manufactures products for our country and countries of export but also provides localization support to global and domestic pharmaceutical companies which are engaged in importing pharmaceutical products.

In addition to our production plant, we perform our research and development activities in our R&D centre located on an area of 4000 sqm and certified by the Ministry of Science, Industry and Technology. The R&D centre not only provides product development and improvement support to our contracted manufacturing partners but also creates a real advantage for domestic sales and exports by enabling us to launch new products and combinations which create a difference in terms of their presentation and/or usage forms.

Currently, we export our products to 17 countries in CIS, Africa, Far East, Middle East and Eastern Europe. Also, we will complete the registration process for our products in 17 countries in 2020. Considering the products which are pending for registration, we will be exporting our products to 60 countries in 2 years’ time. In parallel, we are making negotiations with European companies in order to develop products jointly and export our products to European countries. The first product to be marketed in Europe will be a value added generic product which will be launched in 2023.

We have partnered with 14 companies for contracted manufacturing operations. We will reinforce our position further when we finalize 7 other ongoing projects soon.

Our goal is to become one of the top three companies in terms of export in the industry by 2024 and make Santa Farma an indispensable production hub for global pharmaceutical companies.

W- The company has recently penetrated into the Over-The-Counter (OTC) market with its great expertise and know-how. What do you expect to achieve in this market?

S.K.- Santa Farma is dedicated to offering ‘Healthy Services to Health’. Our main focus has been medication for 75 years since our establishment. Hence, we have invested in medication so far. In the upcoming period, we will transfer our know-how in pharmaceutics to OTC and develop supplements, vitamins and similar non-prescribed products.

There has been a gradual rise in the number of players in Turkish OTC market in recent years. The competitive environment leads to more innovation, flexibility and speed in the market. This is, of course, a good development for consumers. Since we are dedicated to keeping up with the innovations and global and local market dynamics, we aim to develop an innovative OTC product portfolio in order to offer high quality solutions to consumers in this market.

“Wellness” is a rising global and local trend. In that respect, the outbreak of the pandemic has contributed to the awareness about the importance of daily hygiene and health. Consumers want to discover new products to help them improve their life standards and integrate the concept of wellness into their daily routine. Pharmacies are no longer reserved to patients in that they have become indispensable for those who want to maintain their health and improve their life quality. The interest in OTC products is further exacerbated in parallel with digitalization which makes it easier to reach information. At this point, reliable companies and brands are highly preferred by consumers and pharmacists.

Santa Farma believes that its success in OTC market largely depends on adaptation of our business models and strategies to the social and behavioural changes arising from the pandemic and taking sound steps to offer beneficial and permanent solutions to both consumers and stakeholders.

W- What is the domestic and global volume of this market currently? Also, what are the predictions for its future growth?

S.K.- The market volume of OTC products is around USD 175 billion. This is expected to rise to USD 240 billion in 2028. The largest 5 OTC markets are the USA, China, Japan, Germany and Russia while Brazil and India are distinguished as fast growing markets in that respect.

In comparison with the global growth of 5 per cent, OTC market grows by around 25 per cent every year. Hence, it has a total market volume of TRY 10 billion currently. Food supplements constitute around 30% of the total turnover.

We expect the OTC market to grow faster and become more significant in the upcoming period. The increase in consumers’ education level and their awareness about protective health will certainly lead them to prioritize natural ingredients. This will contribute to the growth of the market.

The pandemic has already created substantial changes in daily routines of consumers. They take care to stay healthy and look after their health in these challenging times. Since immunity is an important factor for protection against Covid-19, consumers are more interested in food supplements. This, in turn, results in the growth of penetration in this category.

Given the fact that consumers use multivitamins and other food supplements not for just 1-2 weeks but throughout the pandemic – around 4 months now -, this period is likely to create lasting changes in consumer trends.

W- Could you give some details about your social responsibility projects and your awards?

S.K.- We are actively engaged in 2 important social responsibility projects. The first project, “Don’t Forget Yourself”, is steered for more than 2 years in partnership with Turkish Alzheimer Association. Under this project, we organized public awareness meetings in several cities in order to raise awareness about Alzheimer. We post informative contents and videos on our project website and social media accounts. Also, we participated in Istanbul Marathon with our corporate race team of 97 employees, which made us the leading company in pharmaceutical industry. We ran to contribute to funding a new day care centre. We keep making new efforts in 2020.

Another significant project is “Leave a Yellow Note to Life”. Since it was launched in 2019, we make joint efforts with Viral Hepatitis Control Association in order to raise awareness about Hepatitis B. We managed to attract the attention of masses thanks to the contents posted on our project website and social media accounts. The project was awarded jury special prize on health at Golden Spider Awards in 2019. Also, it was recognized as a successful gerilla project under the health communication section of Felis Awards.

We are also proud to have received Gold Award for the “Best New Product/Service of the Year” at Stevie International Awards as a result of the contest among more than 3,900 applicants from 74 countries throughout the world. It is a real source of pride to receive this prestigious business award with 3D Dynamic Listening Experience project which was designed to reinforce empathy towards schizophrenia patients and their close relations. Of course, we undertake many other projects for the common good of our society in partnership with various other NGOs.

W- Could you give information about the targets of Santa Farma İlaç for the near future?

S.K.- We aim to increase our turnover to TRY 1 billion by 2024 which marks our 80^th anniversary. Also, we aim to be the great place to work as one of the most popular, inspiring and innovative Turkish pharmaceutical companies and become one of the top three companies in terms of export in the industry by 2024. We make dedicated efforts to achieve our goals as a team.

W- Dear Erol Bey and Sami Bey, thank you so much for sharing your viewpoints with us.