Innovating Sustainable Practices in Pharma with Peter Soelkner of Vetter
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Capital to private Equity bridging gaps and fostering synergies to scale the circular economy the F Clos Loop Partners please go to www.los Loop partners.com [Applause] Welcome to another edition of the impact podcast I’m John sharan I’m so honored to have with us today Peter sner he’s the managing director of Veta Pharma good hello Peter hi John good morning so it’s great to be on the show thanks for the invitation opportunity to talk about
Feta Pharma and the impact of our business and what’s going on around the company sustainability and and so forth thank you Peter and you know it’s it’s it’s so kind of you it’s morning here in California it’s evening in Germany where you are right now so thank you for
Staying a little later and and uh and uh uh agreeing to come on our podcast you know Peter before we get talking about all the important work you’re doing at uh better farmer with your colleagues can you please share a little bit about your background where were you born
Where did you grow up where’ you go to get your education and how do you get on this journey to even start with yeah even though I do not look at over 30 but I’m 50 57 in the meantime and uh so I had been around the block
Quite a bit in this industry so I started my career early 1992 with zorus and um so I worked yeah two times in my life for two companies so two times for zorus and two times for veter but before I joined the workforce I um studied chemical engineering I have a
Masters in chemical engineering from the University of Dortmund and later on I had the opportunity to get my MBA from Columbia University in New York which was a fantastic experience to do that in the United States so collectively I used to live in the states for almost 19
Years flying chross the ocean all the time working for um German headquarters um in in with a tourist it’s the same thing as for vet both have a commonality they both family run businesses uh even though that in the meantime became a relatively sizable publicly traded
Company but uh fet it’s it’s really a a great story story as well we’ll get to that in in a in a second and um yeah so I I was born and raised in in Germany um was was born in the town of Essen which is in the rur area pretty Industrial
Area there um so specifically in the mid late 60s going into the 70s there was a completely different environment so the the hometown where I grew up had at that point in time more than 30 coal mines so none of that is an existence anymore was a complete transformation at that point
In time everything what we discuss right now transformation of Industries as well going away from from certain things change in the automotive industry um Pharma biotech definitely being at the Forefront which is a great industry to work in and um yeah so that that change was was consistent and as I indicated
Before I used to live for five and a half years at the East Coast relocated to Germany for four years before I lived almost 13 and a half years in California and had a lifestyle to really fly every single months back and forth and yeah I was really wondering how that story will
End at the certain point the um pandemic gave me a relatively quick answer there was time for us to pack our things and relocate back to Germany and really to help to manage the company here at our corporate headquarters together with my colleague tomoto a feta family in entire
Management team so so you’re back at in Germany with veter farmer and and and for our listeners and viewers who want to find Peter and his colleagues at veter Farmer please go to www. v- pha.com explain Peter before we get talking about all the important in things you’re doing in sustainability of
Veret Pharma who is veter Pharma how old is the company and how big is it and how wide reaching is it so our listeners and viewers could hear from your perspective persp perspective the history of veter Pharma yeah so veter Pharma was was founded in 1950 so we have a
73y old rack record and farma developed out of a smaller Pharmacy here in the historic downtown area of ravensburg Germany which is really an deep part of Southern Germany where Austria Switzerland and Germany gets together in the lake Constance region and um so helmold fet the founder of our company
Was a pharmacist at that point in time after World War II he had certainly that idea as a very young pharmacist how to package certain pills he had his own little uh Innovations and and some pills which could help you when you had an upset stomach and how to package that
He used aluminum foil and created his own little machines and since he did a wonderful job other pharmacist asked him if he could package some of their products for them and that was kind of the idea the initiating idea to go into the packaging business at that point in
Time the the company did everything except something which was stera so that later on uh took place in first time in the mid 70s that we tried to really fill first stero products and in the meantime U feter grew to a$1 billion business this year we in the
Meantime um yeah have a little bit over 6,200 employees within the company wow and what we do is we do as a contract manufacturing organization fill and finish services so drug product services for the who is who in Pharma biotech to um go into pre-filled containers such as
Syringes vials cartridges and on the other hand to secondary package some of those goods where it goes into pen applications uto injectors or just to put it into blister foil and a cardboard box with the little leaflets and 26 different languages and and the artwork and everything what you have to create
To ship it out to patients uh on a global scale and we when we talk about high value biopharmaceuticals so we are definitely not in the over-the-counter drugs so usually if you need a product which is filled by feta you have some some serious topics ranging from oncology
Products such as cancer products um we have products in in our portfolio um in the oran drug Arena so relatively rare diseases only couple of thousand patients around the globe are suffering from these type of diseases but that can really range from from certain uh neurological disorders to um children’s
Alzheimer’s disease there’s such thing that even in the age of 1 to three U that can be observed and there are drugs on the market there is a specific truck on the market which can definitely use this type of disease you find us in um rattis as Rises autoimmune diseases
Multiple sclerosis applications and so forth and uh we work actively with the hu and Pharma biotech with all the big 20 farma and biotech companies as they listed according to their market capitalization as well as small starter companies sometimes you have smaller companies um they have a slick molecular idea and
They are looking for a partner who understands the regulatory requirements with the FDA with the other Global authorities such as IMA and you name it so we definitely have to understand that what we have to do in our business and uh fill those services and we have two
Um I wouldn’t call it necessarily business unit since they’re intertwined there’s a Peta development service where we really help clients with in the clinical phases to get from point A to point B and then to prepare for success in clinical phase three before a product gets approved for the market uh that we
Do all the necessary work I have a sterile filling get even product out there to clinics to test the products and uh then prepare for the market launch where we definitely do that on a daily basis for launch products we have in the meantime roughly 100 products in
Our portfolio what we ship around the globe and you will not find us uh on any of the packaging formats we are strictly in the business to business environment but uh yeah the pharmaceutical and biotch industry knows us quite well that’s wonderful and you know um I see
Some of the products are those some of your products right there by your by your elbow this is some of the so just you know so that that maybe our viewers have ever WR idea so this is this is here one of the feta Specialties is so-called dual chamber syringe where you
Have a loliz part of the drug substance in this piece and the diluent so basically which solves this loliz piece prior to the point of use so you have a little bypass and U basically by mixing those two substances before you get it into the patient you um basically
Dissolve those those mole fules again and or that that is basically a another syringe format it’s a 1 ml format you have a under this cap here is a temper evident cap what you find over here and um you can basically attach a needle with a lure lock combination so some of
That I’ve seen that definitely at the doctor’s offices how you do that and then injected into the patient this is another format soall vile a little glass flask which is sealed by a rubber stopper and a crimp cap which isum with some plastic and so forth so
That is usually used in clinics an oncology product for cancer for example where a medical professional would apply it to Patient uh that that would be kind of a typical format here you find for example socalled cartridges so the cartridge itself goes into an injector an order injector so a device where you
Can just push a button and inject it into the patient’s belly for example in the Home Care Market it’s quite effective so uh it’s probably best known from insulin applications out there for diabetes patients but that is utilized for infertility as well so if really families uh cannot get really a baby and
And really need a specific hormone treatment over a certain span of time that would be kind of a typical application here uh including gross hormons as well if you if people have for and specifically children have gross disorders that comes into play and it comes in all kinds of formats here you
See that with a little vials you know and we have even bigger ones up to 50 milliliters so that is really the smallest format here and everything in between and feder entertains one of the most complete portfolios in the market uh to deal really with see uh different
Um formats from syringes to WS to cartridges on the other hand it is almost irrespective what type of glass is in the middle or what type of device uh we are usually um yeah taken into into into the whole project as a specialist to handle complexity but in
The meantime we really have to deal with very complicated formulations and and really very sensitive molecules as well and how to do that how to get it sterile uh into a syringe um there another great example what comes to mind we have for example products in our portfolio for
Age related mucular disease uh so if not treated it the patient will go blind and you have to inject into the gloss body of the eye a monoclonal antibody I know that’s a whole mouthful of what I’m just saying right but it has a viscosity of
Honey yeah so it’s and and really every droplet counts you have to have an extremely high dosing accuracy on the other hand it has to be sterile if it is not sterile the patient will definitely lose the eye and every little particle which is in that syringe
Would swim lifetime long in the glass body of the eye so these are really the the type of of um high quality applications we we tried to get to the market and I think it would be fair to say without feta some of those products wouldn’t be on the market so that’s
Where we became really a specialist in that in that field and really tried to play there in the Champions League and L of a better term so to be among the best in the business out there without really bragging but I think that’s not an exaggeration that we’re quite good in
What we’re doing so among other things you guys are experts in efficacy efficacy matters in what you do uh you know precision and E efficacy and quality really matter um you know which brings me to another topic I mean Germany is known for quality of everything you manufacture in Germany
Your company’s 73 years old now my experience in my travels is Germany and other parts of Europe have been way ahead of the United States and other parts of North America and other parts of the world frankly on on this uh culturally speaking and socially speaking uh with sustainability you’ve
Been way ahead of us it’s a generational thing it’s baked into your Society talk a little bit about when it became part of the DNA of betterer Pharma during the 73 years that better farmer has been in existence when did sustainability become a part and parcel of your
Offering well if we talk about sustainability in the meantime the political discussion and everything what we talk about today in the social media it gets sometimes confused with just CO2 carbon dioxide footprint however sustainability as we see it here at feter is really going with the UN Global
Compact which goes with 17 different disciplines which really entails uh e ecology economics and the social aspects of sustainability and if you really take certain portions out of those 17 um um topics certainly in the 1950s when the company was founded uh we were not really discussing uh carbon dioxide
Footprint however it was always a family run business it was always this this this waving area we we call it upper suavia here that part of Germany where we are and those folks they are well known that they’re pretty frugal or efficient however you want to call it so
With that said so that it’s it’s really in the DNA of the company it’s in the DNA of the region it’s really where uh people still on Saturdays swipes the streets with a with a broom and that is definitely um pretty pretty good um to run a sterile business in this type of
Environment um so from from from that standpoint yet it had been really in the DNA of the company on the other hand um we we always try to be at the Forefront when it when it comes to uh the uh ecological aspects as well so we had
Really a task at hand where we built um almost 13 years ago when we start to break round for a new warehouse and competent Center for visual inspection which is a massive building so we talk about a building roughly uh 22 M high so 66 ft and then actually has a depth of
Approximately 150 ft by a length of approximately over 400 feet so you can imagine so that that building will be there for quite some decades you yet to think about it what do you do with a building like that where you have to store on the one hand API drug substance
Sometimes at minus 70 degrees you have really fill Product 2 to 8 degrees Centigrade you have huge spaces in terms of warehousing um you have a vast majority where you do visual inspection where you need climate control as well so what do you do with a building like
That when you build it and uh that was even prior to the entire movement what we have experienced five six years ago with frers for future and and other other movements where it became more in central stage to think about CO2 footprint what type of impact it has on
The environment as well so what we did actually 12 years ago go is that we came up even with contracts with local farmers and we do entertain for that building our own biomass power stations so we installed photovoltaic on the building we have geothermal applications there for the heat exchanges so where
You gain energy and on the other hand we decided with the company and I’m happy to report that in the meantime all the electricity we get to the building is uh actually um from from Hydro power since we have the Austrian alss relatively close by so we an ideal situation to
Entertain that so with that said uh we became in 2021 CO2 neutral within the company wow and yeah so we were definitely at the Forefront of that but it’s really a journey what you what you entertain there and it’s never a complete Journey as as good as you are
Is the same as as in sports yes you’re great 100 meter dash world record but that really doesn’t mean that you cannot run faster yeah and you have to at a certain point in time because you know it’s uh yeah I think um a task we we all
Have to have to entertain as an as an industry so you farmer and biotch industry definitely has a sizable footprint when it comes to carbon dioxide uh so uh we always have to find a compromise here as well um since we are bound by regulatory requirements so
We cannot just say okay well with the AC we don’t take it that accurately and the air exchange rates in the clean room um we are bound by regulatory requirements there there clear validations how you have to run the clean room what type of temperature profile do you need what do
You do there in terms of uh the the the entire clean room application and on the other hand you have to balance that with with other top piics where for example you go into the biomass power stations or you come up with photovoltaic or you have an idea where you buy your energy
So with that said um yeah it definitely has an impact on the entire supply chain so our customers as well they’re definitely in that outer thir Circle what we discuss in the meantime a lot within the industry uh it’s always good that uh we we did our homework already
And that we are already there with CO2 neutrality that doesn’t mean we cannot get better but sometimes you know little things count yeah while I’m standing here in this building we open that in the midst of the pandemic in 2020 um it accommodates approximately a thousand um
Yeah desk workers so and and uh on on the other hand we we were definitely um we had the task to find out what do we do with the daily waste we created our desks so what we decided is that every single person is going to a central
Trash can which is somewhere in the central part of of each floor and and brings the treasure him or herself so with that said hey you have an idea what you create per day on the other hand it saves the company some money as well so you do not need really
A whole crew cleaning up after a thousand people uh and it’s really kind of a mindset question as well uh the same as uh that you have motion detectors in in every room so if somebody forgot to switch off the light switch there it will not burn all day
Long uh so these are the little things what you do with the water you utilize in your bathrooms in an end so all of those little things pile up as well and that’s the only chance how you really come up with with a sustainability report where you can really claim those
Type of things as I mentioned it before if if you’ve just joined us we’ve got Peter sner with us he’s the managing director of veter Pharma he we’re talking today I’m in California Peter’s in in in in Germany and he’s at his corporate headquarters uh in in Germany
You could to find Peter and his colleagues on all the great work they’re doing in the pharmaceutical industry and also in sustainability please go to www. veter VT er- pharma.com Peter you mentioned the sustainability report and all the big things you’re doing with regards to energy offsets all the little
Things you’re doing in sustainability how often do you publish your sustainability report and are they are are all the reports catalog then on your website uh yes so the first time when we came up really with a full-fledged sustainability report um it’s and that that almost is
Um yeah 70 plus Pages was uh last year in 202 a 2021 report so we published the 2022 report 2023 will be in the makings so there are two reports and they on the website on the other hand we only printed a couple of leaflets which are
Six pages strong with a QR code which really gets you to the 70 and 80 pages so we had to really save the German forest a little bit you know talking about sustainability you cannot just print the SEC report right um Peter you know in your industry Packaging matters
Uh nowadays especially since um sustainability has become a bigger thing not only in Germany anymore in Europe but around the world this whole issue of sustainability and the shift from this uh linear to Circular economy and ESG principles have all really become institutionalized with regards to the investment Community um uh Wall Street
Analysts and also your constituents and clients who get to enjoy your products talk a little bit about um uh what your thoughts around sustainability and improving product packaging now and in the years to come yeah we definitely see a trend together with our customers in in secondary packaging so for for those
Viewers who who just join us so what we do we do pre-fill containers to get re sterile medication into syringes into vials and into cartridges here and so that is primary packaging so we cannot alter too much what’s going on there because um it’s usually a type one glass
Or very specific plastic syringe out of C plastic for example and there is always interaction between the pharmaceutical solution and the wall of of the syringe body for example so you definitely uh you cannot just freewheeling choose alternative material they validated you have a track record there you have documentation about it
Which goes with the food and truck Administration in the US or the European minister of of Health here or the imar or the anvisa in Brazil um so it’s it’s a highly regulated industry we are in however the secondary part where you put those type of syringes usually in former
Times it was all plastic where you Tred to put that into blister foils and and and uh really put it into a kind of a more rigid box so in the meantime what we find is yes there is still some blistering with alternative materials sometimes biodegradable materials and
Then the good old cardboard box in in a more advanced way is now at the Forefront what what what you see what companies are asking for that they really want to go to packaging formats where you can uh utilize cardboard boxes how it gets shipped out to the patient
So sometimes with a little coating on top of that but which is still uh Environ environmentally friendly and and it’s definitely biodegradable uh instead of the yeah tons of waste we would create just with with the outer boxes and all the plastic we would create in that industry so there’s one way where
We can definitely go into that on the other hand sometimes when it comes to Auto injectors um it’s um sometimes hard to uh justify to go to Applications where you can use the same injector again and again sometimes you have that for patients who get the same consistent
Medication every single day but for some of them it is just a couple of shuts they do need and yes it goes into plastic so the industry right really tried to go into into plastic which would be recyclable on the other hand you deal sometimes with residuals of
Medication which is in there for example a cancer drug and so Force so that even has to be um put into special um waste bins at the pharmacy or where you bring back your goodies and not just throw it into your domestic waste disposal so that that that is something which is
Quite quite special on the on the other hand um it um it it starts with with u smaller topics as well how how you get um all your goods you bring to the clean rooms and so forth the other the packaging there do you have a waste disposal concept do you recycle your
Materials do you collect all of that on site what you utilize around the clean rooms and we have a full-fledged program running around that so that’s uh that’s where it really starts at the local manufacturing level but when it comes to shipping it out we are somewhat limited with the exception that there’s
Definitely clear Trend towards cardboard boxes in package I have to I have to this is I’m stepping away from sustainability for a second because it’s become such big news in the United States um uh this new trend of um the diabetes drugs now being used for weight loss and weight management which then
Can make other great effects in a person’s body blood pressure improvements um of course heart improvements are is is veter Farmer part of that uh ecosystem of wovi zic and this whole new uh huge trend of uh of these medicines being used for for weight management out of confidentiality reason
I canot tell you the exact company and products however so it’s a socalled glp1 analoges so like proteins so yes we are a part of that so I have some knowledge about those those type type of drugs I think um for a diabetes patient it has a tremendous benefit so after every piece
Of cake you were eating before you prick your finger to draw some blood and to figure out what type of insulin you need at that day and here you basically um just uh inject yourself into your belly with an injector for example once a week and your body is or has ability to
Regulate the insulin itself so for a diabetes 2 Patient it is a massive benefit instead of almost every single day once or twice you you prick yourself to draw some blood or you get some insulin injections and forget that now on a gp1 onlog basis where you have that
Application once a week is huge so now as in side effect and benefit what came out of the clinical programs it uh showed that people have a weight loss 10 15% of their body weight um which can be certainly a huge benefit for really obese people uh so have for whatever
Reason has some psychological effects or the metabolism doesn’t allow them really to uh completely um reduce the weight in a in a meaningful way uh there it certainly has a benefit when it comes to cardiovascular diseases or other side effects which come really with massive overweight uh on the other hand I’m not
So sure with a um body mass index of 30 I think certain athletes would qualify for that because their muscles are that heavy yeah so right I’m not too sure if we are really pointing in the right direction for every person who’s taking that at this point in time as a
Lifestyle drug it’s just Peter talking my personal belief so I I wouldn’t utilize that AR rather go three times per week to the gym and try to keep somewhat fit right but but but better Farmers benefiting from this whole new trend because you get to make more packaging to support those Industries
Yeah yes in theory in theory yes yes in theory yes it is certain the pharmaceutical and biotch business is a business AB absolutely right on the other hand we we certainly take take some ethical Pride as well what what what we manufacture that is really meaningful that it really makes a
Difference in people’s lives that can be really lifechanging or life saving even with some of the medications we manufacture and uh but on the other hand i’ I definitely have to say um that um the advancements the industry made in the in the last decade is is tremendous
Including those gp1 on a l drugs where I just explained what difference it makes somebody who’s suffering from diabetes too huge patient benefit there right right back to sustainability you know Peter you’ve done a made a great case for everything important that veter farmer is working on you’re working on
Big things such as energy offsets and becoming carbon neutral you’ve doing small things like in the in the beautiful new office tower that you launched a couple years ago in terms of waste management and and the shift to the circular economy you’re working on packaging what what are some of the
Initiatives that you’re allowed to talk about that are most exciting about you that you that are coming in the future because as you well said and and our listeners and viewers have come to know sustainability is truly just a journey there’s no Finish Line we can all be
Better we can all be better as individuals and as corporations and as organizations so what are you excited about uh in terms of the future sustainability initiatives that you’re working on Peter with your colleagues at better Pharma yeah so uh is definitely to um even by I’m I’m just looking to to
The other side here outside of the window of of our little foer here um to a brand new manufacturing building which will accommodate four additional filling lines what we have under construction and by just thinking about how you construct such a building how do you have your energy streams there
What is the layout how do you do that what type of of materials do you utilize and so forth has a massive impact already in in the building phase and and certainly you cannot really ask for great results after you didn’t really do the work from the design phase on when
You when you come up with with with with you with the growth of the company and it’s definitely fair to say that we are massively investing into additional buildings where founding our business we have to prepare for Success we have over 200 projects uh in the pipeline uh
Together with our customers in the different clinical phases as you know not every clinical phase material will be a commercial success will make it to the market but there will be a vast majority of products which will be launched at a certain point in time and
We have to prepare for that success so it’s it is an expanding company we have to think about really how we create our our factories what do we do in terms of the building layout on the other hand what we have launched as well and it doesn’t stop there are really
Initiatives that we um in um have that kind of bike to to work initiative and in the meantime over two and a half thousand of our colleagues um got to lease uh on on a on a really economical basis uh bikes they right to work uh we have charging stations here we we
Basically have um a whole stable of of way where you can really put your bike underneath a roof and which is which is highly modern and so forth so specifically in this environment where we do not have really great public transportation that is different in the bigger German cities but it doesn’t hold
True here in the more rural areas so uh but it’s so remarkable that a vast majority of our staff chose that route and that they are biking to works that they do these type of things on the other hand um they sometimes when we talk about sustainability as I mentioned
It before uh we do not take really social aspects too much into consideration so so now for the 10th year so we just had uh a little anniversary there we have the so-called feta kids initiative so what do we do so kids here in in Germany is the same as
In the US but this a little bit different spread out here have 13 weeks of vacation while their parents look on five to six weeks of vacation so with with with that said there is a misfit what do you do with your children when sometimes you know um schools have
Closed their doors and and so forth always with the little ones and we run every single vacation a a great program where we have kids camps where where you can really go for the teenagers into it classes English courses or for the smaller ones really where there more
Playful we have a soccer camp we have a tennis camp you can go to Lake Conant and learn how to sail a boat and so forth and we we sponsor that um big time from our company take care of the community uh we encourag even with uh
With gym passes here where people can get that for a relatively small dollar um to utilize all kinds of gym facilities in their environment and so forth to keep themselves healthy and fit and and we have all kinds of programs support our staff so last year we had
Actually um the opportunity um that we got an award the um sustainable impact award um here in in Germany uh with an impact on employees so which was another aspect of sustainability to have to be CO2 neutral is one thing but to see more all and compassing according according
To the UN Global imp com compact that is really the name of the game because without a sound understanding with a change of behavior within your staff you will not achieve those type of things it’s true that’s true and as you said it see Colley economics and social it’s not
Just like you said you know it’s like you said it’s not just about decarbonizing our companies and our society is so much more there’s a holistic approach to sustainability that obviously veter Pharma has adopted and is and is accelerating absolutely well Peter thank you so much for staying I know it’s it’s
At it’s it’s it’s we’re we’re nearing 7:00 p.m. in Germany uh it’s just the morning here in California and because sustainability is a journey uh we want you to continue to come back on the impact podcast and share the Journey of sustainab in sustainability at veter Pharma for our listeners and viewers to
Find Peter and his colleagues and all the important things that they’re doing at veter Pharma in terms of making products that not only change lives but potentially make Mak products also that save lives and also all the great work they’re doing in sustainability and and read their uh sustainability reports
They’re on their website you could go to www.va.com Peter sner thank you so much for your time today thank you for all the great work you’re doing in the pharmaceutical industry and making us healthier people around the world and also thank you for the work you’re doing in sustainability and making the world
Just a better Place John thank you so much for that opportunity that we could present a couple of things what is happening here in in the central part of Europe at feta Pharma was really fun to be on your show and hope I have the opportunity to talk to you soon and to
Report about our progress thank you so much this edition of the impact podcast is brought to you by engage engage is a digital booking platform revolutionizing the talent booking industry with thousands of athletes celebr ities entrepreneurs and Business Leaders engage as the go-to spot for booking talent for speeches custom experiences
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