The biotech company Moderna announced that the Uruguayan laboratory Adium Pharma will be the executing arm that will allow it to increase its penetration in Latin America.
In an interview with Café & Negocios, the CEO of the firm, Patricio Rodríguez, assured that today it has 300 employees in Uruguay and 5,700 in total, among the 18 countries in which it has a presence in the region.
“Our function is to be the local arm of Moderna”, emphasized the head of the laboratory. Regarding what the agreement for the laboratory involves, Rodríguez indicated: “It is a great responsibility, as a company purpose we have to bring good, innovative products that save lives to the population of Latin America. It is a great responsibility to accelerate this process that Moderna was already doing”, he remarked.
The challenges of both firms are aimed at sustaining vaccination rates, “that the boosters do not decline or that the different age groups do not forget the importance of mass vaccination,” the CEO remarked. In this sense, Rodriguez added: “We believe that it is the only way to beat this pandemic”.
Asked if they should adapt their infrastructure, the CEO remarked that Adium will not import or manipulate the product so you do not need to modify your infrastructure. “Yes, to grow our team both in Uruguay and in the region to be able to provide the appropriate service and meet the objectives that we have with Moderna in this association.” This forces the company to hire between 80 and 100 people throughout Latin America in order to meet this challenge.
The alliance
According to Román Saglio, Moderna’s director of Commercial Alliances for Latin America, this association is part of Moderna’s geographic expansion strategy and is in line with the recent announcements of expansion of its commercial network in Asia Pacific and Europe.
The high vaccination rates and the good acceptance by governments and the population of anti-Covid-19 vaccines in the region make the Latin American market extremely interesting for Moderna.
Brazil and Mexico are the two destinations that lead the objectives of the American company. “In a region of 640 million inhabitants, 215 million are in Brazil and 130 in Mexico, Moderna has not had good penetration there, probably due to lack of local presence; we want to quickly reverse that,” said the regional director of the biotechnology company.
“As the person in charge of the region, I am convinced that the best strategy is to ally with Adium because they have extensive experience in entering new businesses and accelerating business times,” said Saglio.
There are currently many mechanisms for access to vaccines that, for the most part, are resolved through direct interaction between Moderna and governments. However, according to Saglio, in the future a private market will open around covid-19 where the equation will be different and probably at that time Adium – which has five plants in the region and a hub in Uruguay – will play another role. “There will be a way out of the pandemic through an endemic and the business will not be direct with governments, but commercial and Adium has all the knowhow to do it”projected the director of Moderna.
It should be remembered that biotechnology is not only a vaccine company and, even less so, only a vaccine company against the coronavirus, but rather the core of its business is oncology, rare and autoimmune diseases, areas in which Adium has a very strong presence at the regional level.
According to the CEO of the Uruguayan laboratory, Adium’s business center is primary care, which are pharmacy products under medical prescription dedicated to cardiology, gynecology, traumatology, urology and pain.
On the other hand, the Uruguayan company has another segment of highly complex oncology products. “In both segments the company reached a leadership position”he highlighted.
