DAILY DISPATCH 06 Jun 2006 Page 8
Pharmaceutical giant discovers sweet empowerment
medicine
IN A BID to improve its empowerment credentials,
international pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and Company (Lilly) has sold its
diabetes-related business to new empowerment player Batswadi Pharmaceuticals,
whose partners include disabled people.
The R67 million sale of business
agreement will see Lilly supply insulin products to Batswadi who will then
market and distribute them to both South Africas publie and private health
sectors.
Empowerment has been a touchy issue for pharmaceutical
multinational companies in SA because they have no provision for equity deals in
their governance rules.
The proposed health charter has indicated that
31% of equity needed to be in black hands by 2014.
Lillys managing
director Jim Ringer explained that as an international company, Lilly was unable
to sell a stake to an empowerment company.
But we are committed to
empowerment in this country, and have active programmes under way to contribute
in terms of the other pillars of empowerment, especially traimng, and enterprise
development, of which this deal is a part. Lilly would also contribute to human
resource empowerment by relocating 18 employees to Batswadi Pharmaceuticals,
transferring skills and experience in diabetes care and pharmaceutical sales and
distribution.
Batswadi Pharmaceuticals chief executive Christopher
Whitfield described the deal as groundbreaking.
Batswadi is wholly
focused on increasing Africas access to innovation, particularly in
biotechnology. Our focus for this partnership will be to build a strong health
consortium of the best innovations and partners in diabetes ca e to bring not
only products but real health outcomes to the patients suffering from diabetes.
Robert Appelbaum, partner and head of healthcare at ~aw firm Sonnenberg, hoffman
and Galombik said government was serious about making SA the powerhouse of
pharmaceuticals on the continent, a goal that American-born Whitfield said his
company was working towards.
Trade and industry department empowerinent
director Jeffrey Ndunio said the deal was an endorsement of broad based
empowerment in South Africa. He was referring to the partnership between
Batswadi and I)isability Empowerment Concerns (DEC), which has a 20% stake in
the pharmaceutical company. Diabetes afflicts an estimate~5% of South
Ahicans.
DIVERSE PROFITS: Another of Eli Lilly and Companys highly
profitable medicines, this one the anti-depressant Cymbalta. The 60mg pills are
manufactured in Indianapolis, in the US where this photo was taken. Strong sales
of the anti-depressant and other newer drugs have helped the multinational
pharmaceutical company boost profits, including a 13 percent jump at the end of
2005. AP