Interview with Dr. Erhan Baş, General Manager of Genveon İlaç

We conducted an enjoyable interview with Genveon Pharmaceuticals General Manager Dr. Erhan Baş, discussing the company's activities and research and development work. Baş also provided detailed information about the products that won the "Best Product" award at the Golden Mortar Awards. [caption id="attachment_114418" align="aligncenter"] Dr. Erhan Baş[/caption]

Could you tell us about yourself and your professional background?

After graduating from Istanbul Medical School, I completed my master's degree at Boğaziçi University Department of Biomedical Engineering. Subsequently, I completed the Boğaziçi University Business Administration Program and Marmara University Strategic Business Management Program. I received training in General Management at Harvard Business School, Senior Executive Programme at London Business School, and Executive Development Programme at Wharton Business School. I began my career in the pharmaceutical sector in 1990 as a Product Manager and continued in various management positions. I served as General Manager of Bilim Pharmaceuticals for 16 years. I am currently continuing my career as General Manager of Genveon Pharmaceuticals. Between 1978 and 1984, I played professional basketball for Beşiktaş Basketball A Team. As in the past, I currently hold positions in many civil society organizations.

Could you provide information about Genveon for our readers?

Generica Pharmaceuticals, with its experienced and distinguished human resources team, has been growing rapidly by placing great emphasis on research and development. It contributes to human health and life through a broad product portfolio consisting of original, equivalent, and OTC pharmaceuticals offered for the benefit of people in acute and chronic markets. With 2020, we launched a transformation movement within the scope of our new vision, which we created with ambitious goals to reach more people's lives. As the first step of this transformation movement, we changed our name to "Genveon." Genveon, born from the combination of our former name "Generica" and "Invention," the contemporary definition of innovation, symbolizes our new vision that brings together the trust we have gained, our high quality culture, and dynamism with innovation. Along with our name, we also renewed our logo. The arrow in our new logo, pointing forward and upward, shows that Genveon always aims for the best and most advanced for health and humanity. In parallel with this change, we have entered the production sector with our manufacturing facility in Gebze, which we added to our company and ranks among the best in its class in terms of quality internationally. Our facility currently exports to 65 countries, including Japan, Canada, South Korea, and many European countries.

Could you tell us about the sectors you serve and your products?

Our product range consists of value-added original, generic, and OTC products. We serve the pharmaceutical sector with a total of 47 products and 89 formulations. We have defined our pharmaceutical portfolio as acute, chronic, and value-added equivalent and original OTC products. We currently manufacture in the fields of neurology, psychiatry, otolaryngology, general practice, internal medicine, pediatrics, physical therapy, orthopedics, surgery, pulmonology, and obstetrics and gynecology, excluding products currently under research and development.

What is your company's approach to research and development? Could you provide information about the R&D activities you have carried out in this context?

As Genveon, we prioritize developing value-added new products that will benefit humanity and human life. We made considerable investments in infrastructure, machinery, and equipment to develop our R&D center located in our Gebze facility. We will continue our investments in this area. In our new, modern R&D center that we will establish, we will accelerate our new product development within the scope of our strategic planning. By focusing particularly on rapidly developing chronic disease areas globally such as oncology, urology, respiratory, and diabetes, we are concentrating our R&D activities in these areas. Furthermore, with our R&D center, we are working to contribute to Turkey's economy and increase exports, aiming to become a regional power.

What is the most recent product you have launched to the market? Which formulation studies did you use with this product?

We have two value-added products that won the "Best Product" award at the Golden Mortar Awards, where successful institutions, individuals, and products in the pharmaceutical and pharmacy sector are selected. As you know, iron deficiency is a very common problem in our country. In addition to iron obtained from foods, iron supplementation from external sources is generally needed. "Sidefer," produced with sucrosomial technology, is our dietary supplement product where iron mineral, which is not easily absorbed by the body, is coated with a sucrose ester shell and presented for use in Turkish medicine. Our other product "Cistus Antivirus Lozenge" acts as an infection blocker by creating a mechanical barrier in the mouth and throat, especially during these pandemic days, preventing viruses and bacteria from attaching in this area. Cistus, which we brought to the market with the slogan "Keep a stone against the flu" and is the first lozenge brand to help protect against viruses, contains Cistus Creticus extract in its formulation, which demonstrates antiviral activity against enveloped viruses, thus adding value to human health.

What activities are you conducting at your newly purchased manufacturing facility in Gebze? Could you discuss the advantages this facility will bring to the sector and your brand?

Our facility in Gebze, which we purchased, has GMP Certification from 29 countries. With an annual production capacity of approximately 70 million boxes and 3 billion tablets, our facility has licenses to produce for 123 countries and actively produces for 83 countries, including leading developed countries of the world such as Japan, Australia, Korea, the Philippines, Brazil, Canada, Germany, and some European countries. I am proud to say that our facility has a history of sustainable and successful quality performance registered through inspections by many health authorities. With the facility we added to our company, we also added 300 employees working at the facility to the Genveon family. In total, Genveon provides employment to 850 people. In addition to employment, we work with many suppliers, contributing to the country's ecosystem and the sector. In addition to producing for the Turkish pharmaceutical market and many developed countries at our facility, we aim to transform our facility into a production base for many international companies. Being an approved facility with many countries provides great convenience in reaching our export targets. Particularly, increasing our exports will be a valuable advantage that will rapidly bring us to our goal of becoming a regional power.

Could you provide information about the measures you have taken while conducting your production to protect the environment and ensure the continuation of sustainability?

Needless to say, a company that is growing rapidly in the world, excited about new product development, and acts with an innovative approach in all processes—if it can also create social value—will be successful. Creating a social corporate culture is very important to us. Sustainable corporate culture develops around respect for stakeholders and the environment, intellectual accumulation, compliance with ethical rules, and eco-trend-oriented strategy focus.

What are your corporate social responsibility projects? Could you tell us about Genveon's activities in this area?

We instill the awareness of social corporate responsibility in all our employees to be able to leave a sustainable future for future generations. In this direction, we are building an army of volunteers within our company. We sign many projects not only with our employees but by including our employees' families and stakeholders in our volunteer army and by gaining their support.

Could you provide information about the projects you want to carry out in coming years?

We aim to reach new and value-added products in the shortest time, increase our exports to become a regional power, and become a production base for many companies internationally. In addition to all these objectives, in the short term, we view rapidly but safely climbing to the top ranks in the Turkish pharmaceutical sector with our current products, continuing our facility's quality as the best in its class internationally, and increasing our production to contribute to Turkey's economy as our main umbrella objectives. Among our medium-term objectives are bringing many new products to the market through our R&D center and making them available to people, increasing our exports and touching people's lives around the world with our value-added products, and adding the products of domestic and foreign pharmaceutical companies to our production network within the country and internationally. As Genveon, starting from 2021, we plan to begin exporting both our own products and contract manufacturing products from our production facility. In this direction, we plan to obtain 30 percent of our total revenue from foreign markets by 2025.