Daily Post (Liverpool): : PowderJect to set up UK direct
sales force
October 5, 2002 10:11am
VACCINES company PowderJect is taking control of its own destiny by setting
up a UK-wide direct sales force.
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The move marks an inportant transitional phase for PowderJect from a
research-based start-up company to a profitable revenue earning business.
PowderJect, which manufactures flu jabs at its Evans Vaccines plant in Speke,
is embarking on a recruitment campaign to extend its marketing infrastructure
and promote its own brands within its home market.
About 25 specialist vaccines sales and marketing staff will be taken on,
backed by the group's international team of brand managers, account directors
and marketing experts.
The main focus of the drive, which will begin next September when the current
marketing deal with Celltech expires, will be the Speke-made Fluvirin vaccine.
By marketing products itself, PowderJect will retain greater value and
position itself as a potential marketing partner for other vaccine firms.
The group already has its own sales team in the Nordic region and hopes to
extend the system through other European markets.
Chairman and chief executive Dr Paul Drayson said: ``The company has grown
significantly over the last two years, and with anticipated vaccine revenues of
over pounds 160m this year it makes strategic sense for us to expand our
commercial organisation, to ensure we offer the best possible service to our
customers with a sales team entirely focused on vaccines.'
PowderJect has transformed itself from a drug delivery specialist to a pure
vaccine company in the past year, benefiting along the way from buoyant demand
for flu injections and other vaccines.
In May the company joined a select band of European biotechnology companies
to report a profit. PowderJect revealed pre-tax profits were pounds 100,000 in
the year to end March compared to a loss of pounds 20.6m last year.
In the current year, PowderJect estimated, profits would exceed pounds 25m.
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MATERIAL CONTAINED, PRESENTED, OR PROVIDED HERE IS FOR GENERAL INFORMATION
PURPOSES ONLY AND IS NOT TO BE CONSTRUED AS REFLECTING THE KNOWLEDGE OR OPINIONS
OF THE PUBLISHER, AND IS NOT TO BE CONSTRUED OR INTENDED AS PROVIDING MEDICAL OR
LEGAL ADVICE. THE DECISION WHETHER OR NOT TO VACCINATE IS AN IMPORTANT AND
COMPLEX ISSUE AND SHOULD BE MADE BY YOU, AND YOU ALONE, IN CONSULTATION WITH
YOUR HEALTH CARE PROVIDER.
"A foolish faith in authority is the worst enemy of truth."
-- Albert Einstein, letter to a friend, 1901
"I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves, and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education."
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to William C. Jarvis, September 28, 1820
"What's the point of vaccination if it doesn't protect you from the unvaccinated?"
-- Sandy Gottstein
"Who gets to decide what the greater good is and how many will be sacrificed to it?"