Interview

From Scooples to scruples

Paul Drayson, chairman and chief executive, Powderject Pharmaceuticals

Andrew Clark
Guardian

Saturday January 19, 2002

The boss of Britain's biggest vaccine manufacturer made his first fortune in a rather less healthy industry - by developing the Scooples crispy snack.

"It was a shaped crispbread product," recalls Paul Drayson. "We identified a technology relating to the biscuit extrusion process, which allowed you to shape the product. In a way, we broke the mould."

He was working for an offshoot of sweet company Trebor. He made more than a quarter of a million pounds after leading a management buyout of the venture - enough to set him up as an entrepreneur.

During a difficult period for vaccine firms, he could be forgiven a little nostalgia for the cosy world of confectionery.

Drayson is chairman and chief executive of Powderject Pharmaceuticals, which makes many of the vaccines taken by children across Britain. His family stake in it is worth £105m. Among the products of Powderject's Evans Vaccines subsidiary are jabs for tetanus, flu, hepatitis B and the BCG vaccine for tuberculosis.

Vaccines were thrust into the limelight after the September 11 attacks, when fears of anthrax and smallpox swept the western world. This had barely subsided when the industry faced a barrage of health scares, largely revolving around the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) antidote.

Drayson is frustrated by many of the voices raised against vaccination: "You have to take a rational approach. The alternative to vaccination is the diseases themselves. The particular problem at the moment is an over-concern about the side effects of vaccination which is leading to people not having their children immunised, causing a significant health risk."

Drayson, 41, says the exotic nature of contagious diseases makes parents complacent: "When you look at things like measles, you just don't see them in this country. We don't have these diseases here, so the psychology of it is understandable. But there is a concern related to the fact that people are travelling more - some of the diseases we thought were beaten are coming back. Tuberculosis is an example."

Powderject does not make the MMR jab but Drayson springs to its defence, criticising those who challenged Tony Blair on whether his children had taken the drug. "The way the issue came up regarding the prime minister was very unfair," he says. "There is a limit. It is a matter of personal choice whether you talk about your family." Drayson has chosen to do so - a father of four, he says he is happy for his children to have MMR.

Powderject's vaccine operation is based in Speke, Liverpool. It is the only vaccine production operation of any significant size in Britain. Drayson never anticipated running a mass manufacturing business - he co-founded Powderject to sell a needle-free injection system, which fires powder through the skin at supersonic speeds.

Drayson stumbled on the venture while looking for investment opportunities after his Scooples success, which gave him a taste for running a start-up. "In the biscuit industry, I'd gone from doing a PhD to building a business from scratch. I'd spent six years doing it and I was very single-minded. It was all-consuming. I was very clear that I loved it - it was very fulfilling."

In his search for an entrepreneurial spark, Drayson went to Oxford to visit Brian Bellhouse, a medical engineering don who had come up with a painless powder injection system. The gun-like device was considered particularly promising for dental anaesthetics, patients with needle phobia or for administering vaccines to children. Although impressed, Drayson was more enamoured with Bellhouse's daughter, Elspeth, who later became his wife. "I was very taken with her," he says. "I was very interested in the technology and I fell in love with Elspeth."

Drayson offered the business brawn to go with Bellhouse's brains and the pair set up Powderject to commercialise the idea, floating in 1997 with a £50m market value. Progress on the device has been much slower than expected. Facing the harsh reality of City expectations, Powderject two years ago bought Evans Vaccines, a profitable, mature business, to use as a cash cow. "Developing the technology took longer than anticipated because we found it more difficult than expected to configure the device for specific applications," Drayson says.

Vaccines are now the core of the company and Powderject was one of the first to offer its services in September, when there were calls for a stockpile of vaccines to counteract bioterrorism. The firm has restarted production of an old smallpox antidote and ratcheted up output of an anti-anthrax product.

"The company is the only manufacturer of vaccines in the UK. We have a responsibility to respond to a national emergency," says Drayson. Critics, however, point out that despite this heroic talk, Powderject is still making a profit on these vaccines, rather than selling them at cost price.

Drayson is coy. "The matter of pricing the vaccines is a matter for the government and us." But does he see it as a commercial opportunity? "The events of September 11 were terrible. The fact that the world's in a situation of having to contemplate protecting itself is awful. You do have mixed feelings about it."

So why not make the vaccines available on a no-profit basis? Drayson looks uncomfortable, then begins: "I've a responsibility to my shareholders in running Powderject and it's a..."

He suddenly dries up. There is a pause of at least 10 seconds. After a long exhalation, he mutters: "You've stumped me, really."

In an email a few days later, he seeks to clarify Powderject's position, saying that in the case of biodefence "it is only ethical that profit margins cannot and should not be at the same level as other medicines". He adds that it is important to yield at least a small profit to help fund the development of new vaccines and to reward investors in the business.

Drayson is happier talking about wider biotechnology issues - as chairman of the BioIndustry Association, he is the industry's mouthpiece. Most notably, he is one of few drugs bosses willing to speak openly in favour of animal testing.

"It is important for the biotech industry to be vocal on this," he says. "We don't like doing it and if there was an alternative, we wouldn't be doing it. It is for the general public to decide whether they want new medicines - it boils down to that. There are going to be people who disagree with all manner of things we do. But where people use violence and intimidation to make their point, society starts to break down."

No City support

Drayson is particularly angry that violent protests have prompted animal testing firm Huntingdon Life Sciences to move its stock market listing to the US. He believes it deserved more support from City advisers, which deserted the business after being targeted by protesters.

"The response by the City was not strong enough," he says. "We in the pharmaceuticals industry have to put up with these activists every day. We do see the City as partners. We are important customers of the City and we expect the City to support us in these circumstances."

Drayson says his commitment to developing drugs stems from his asthmatic childhood - he once faced derision from analysts for including an impassioned account of his own health problems in a set of disappointing financial results. He has put his money where his mouth is - in 1999 he gave £1.2m to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, shocked at the dilapidated state of the facilities where his wife gave birth to their third child.

Now Drayson is teaching his children to swim, and indulges his passion for fencing: "It doesn't matter about your age. As you get older, your speed goes down but your technique goes up."

The CV

Age 41

Education School at St Dunstan's College; BSc and PhD in robotics from Aston University

Career Early career in product development and marketing at Rover Cars and Trebor Group. Led a management buyout of a subsidiary when Trebor was taken over by Cadbury-Schweppes, then sold the business at a substantial profit in 1991. Co-founded Powderject Pharmaceuticals in 1993

Family Lives in Gloucestershire with his wife Elspeth and four children

Recreations Spending time with his family and children; fencing

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