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increases would continue to be prevalent;
everything was easy.”
In 2008, things started to change. Savoir
points out that Mexico has three main
sources of capital: oil, tourism, and remittance
(this is the income from Mexicans
working in the United States). When the
global economic crisis hit the world that
year, all three income sources dropped significantly.
Remittance dropped, the oil price
dropped after being high for so long, and
tourism was sent packing after both swine
flu and the spiraling war on drugs. Acquisition
power reduced dramatically, at the
same time COFEPRIS implemented bioequivalence
regulations that suddenly enabled
the public to access cheap, trusted
generics. Generics didn’t stop growing, foreign
competition also joined the crowd,
and prices dropped even more. For the majority
of companies, faces dropped too.
Some companies had foreseen these market
changes and preferred to look outwards
and export sooner, rather than later.
Guillermo Funes Rodriguez, CEO of
innovative Mexican company Silanes comments,
“Due to the fact that our major
market was Mexico, we had to make a
change ourselves. The only way was to
diversify our products and go
into Latin America, the United
States and Europe to build up
strategic alliances. We are now
growing in those markets and
we are currently developing new
products in our European research
and development facilities.”
Silanes as a company puts
10% of sales back into research
and development. Although
Mexico is still their principal
market, they have also been
Guy Jean Savoir,
General Director,
Carnot
manufacturing their own products in Brazil
after forming a strategic alliance with
Ache Labs, the Brazilian pharmaceutical
company.
Silanes is the first and only Mexican
company to have an innovative drug developed
on home turf and approved by the
FDA. The company is exporting their
snake, scorpion and spider bite anti-venom
to the United States and soon to parts
of Africa. He notes, “if we had decided to
go into the North American
market with just generics, as
other companies have done, we
would have failed because Asian
countries are selling their generics
to the Americans much
more cheaply than Mexicans
ever could. So we had to conquer
the North American market
with quality and innovation
in the field of biotechnology.”
For most Mexican pharmaceutical
companies, an FDA approval
means open doors, but for Silanes
the process took eleven years.
Socorro España Lomeli, executive director
of ANAFAM the association of
pharmaceutical manufacturers, believes,
“When a company wants to export, they
Headquarters:
Amores 1304, Col. Del Valle
México D. F., C. P. 03100
Tel. (52-55) 5488 3700
Manufacturing plant :
Prolongación 6 Norte No. 200
Parque Industrial Toluca 2000
Toluca, Edo. de México.
Tel. (722) 548 0770
www.silanes.com.mx
Providing the world with health solutions
AND INNOVATION
AUGUST 2012 FOCUS REPORTS S14
FOCUS REPORTS August 2012
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