By Gela Megeneishvili
As healthcare has never been more important, gaining knowledge on how to detect and treat various diseases can ensure a way to fully enjoy life. The French company Servier, which has been supplying the Georgian market with quality medicines for 18 years, shared its insights with The FINANCIAL in their interview with Maia Khetsuriani, the Director of Servier Georgia.
Q. What are the primary goals of Servier?
A. The aim of Servier as a French pharmaceutical company is to contribute to the progress of the medical world and support affordable healthcare. Through our actions, we contribute to transmitting to future generations a world that ensures access to quality healthcare for all. This aim unites Servier’s presence in 150 countries, represented by 22,500 employees.
The company has four core values, which are: supporting innovation; taking care of patients and employees; sharing experience across the company and offices; and striving towards success. These are the factors that have turned Servier into a global brand since the 1950s and enlisted it among the top 30 pharmaceutical companies worldwide, whilst being the second such French pharmaceutical company. Servier Georgia was established in 2003 and has since built up a great reputation among the Georgian medical society and general population. The company is currently enlisted among the top ten companies in the Georgian pharmaceutical market.
Q. How did Servier adapt to the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic?
A. The pandemic has posed a great challenge for all companies and individuals as well as the pharmaceutical sector in Georgia. Our main objective has been to provide continuous distribution of our medicines to patients to efficiently manage their disease, a task which we accomplish with the cooperation of the head office and our local partners. Through our hard work, there has been no shortage of Servier medicine throughout the duration of the pandemic.
The second objective has been to maintain the delivery of scientific and valuable content to the medical society and patients. Lockdowns and restrictions made it challenging, thus forcing us to think differently and to become more flexible and adapt to the new reality. The spread of medical news and information to healthcare experts, doctors and patients is extremely important in order for them to be able to effectively manage chronic diseases. Therefore, we started using online platforms, tried out new formats and numerous new campaigns.
At the time, Servier was actively pursuing medical campaigns on both TV and social media networks, which enabled our patients to access the relevant and reliable information they needed for their healthcare. The extent of our reach with informative, creative content through new channels was great, and we have received very positive feedback from both healthcare experts and our patients as a result.
Q. Which sectors does Servier operate in?
A. Servier is the market leader in cardiology, angiology and diabetes, and has been offering effective, high quality medicines for different diseases in these domains. In the last five years, Servier has entered the oncology area, where demand for treatment and patient support programmes is especially high. Our research and development (R&D) centres are continuously involved in creating, testing, and developing new medicinal products, which are manufactured and packaged in our 16 production centres around the world. 98% of Servier brand-name medicines’ active ingredients are synthesized in its own plant in France.
At Servier, we put patients first. They are at the heart of each of our activities. We believe that the best way to meet their current and future needs is to work together. To this end, with the collaboration of international medical associations various campaigns have been initiated, which are focused on raising public awareness and education on such common diseases as hypertension, diabetes, angina, gastric and colorectal cancer, and venous insufficiency.
This year, patients’ awareness about disease is even more crucial due to the pandemic situation. Helping patients to identify symptoms in order to get early access to a doctor makes Servier a real partner in their ‘health pass’. Early diagnoses can lead to better management of the disease and longer and higher quality of life for patients.
One of the directions of our activity was “Breaking the Haemorrhoids Taboo” and “Act for Veins” as both haemorrhoidal and chronic venous disease are very prevalent and on the rise as a result of the pandemic causing greater immobility among the population.
Our medicine Detralex gained immense popularity in effectively treating chronic venous disease and haemorrhoids and subsequently received a Golden Brand Award. This was a great accomplishment, which was achieved thanks to a combination of international practice, Georgian experts’ endorsement and positive feedback and satisfaction from patients.
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