Janet Barrie:

Esteve has been at home in Barcelona for nearly nine decades now, the little pharmacist shop is now a global enterprise. Esteve says it innovates to live better at the heart of its success, its approach to research and development.

Jaume Masana:

I would say that the philosophy behind R&D in Esteve is really innovation. We are a company that contrary to what other companies are doing, we are not developing me too drugs. We are addressing a novel target, for example our most advance project is a sigma-1-receptor antagonist that is intended to be developed for neuropathic pain. We are developing this is our first in class product and if successful these is potentially able to transform the treatment of various types of neuropathic pain. Sigma-1-receptor antagonist is now in Phase I clinical trials, we are developing a proof of concept in humans that will be completed at in mid 2010. Our intention is that as soon as we get this proof of concept then we will partner our drug with someone who can contribute in financing the clinical development and also contributing with know-how for the treatment of variety of neuropathic pain disorders. Another example of our innovation is HIVACAT project, HIVACAT is a project intended to the, to develop a prophylactic (indiscernable)vaccine for HIV. And then we are very proud that to have been able to develop a collaboration frame work which is very innovative I think even that is unique in Europe. We have joined it here the efforts of several parties so from one part and very worldwide recognized scientist Dr Gatell, Dr Clotet, Dr Christian Brander and that they are putting on the table of their science some La Caixa which is a bank, reputed banking institution in the Spain also the (indiscernable)(indiscernable) and also Esteve is a I think is a unique public private partnership that in which the several parties are working together in order to try to develop these Aidsvaccine.

Janet Barrie:

How significant move this is? How important is this cooperation on the development of this drug?

Jaume Masana:

I think that this is important because we understand very important, because we understand that in some way the public private partnership are the basis for our future success in development of new drugs.

Janet Barrie:

And it says a lot about Esteve approach to social responsibility doesn't it how important is the concept of social responsibility for Esteve?

Jaume Masana:

This is a key point. All our activities not only has have basically this social responsibility specially HIVACAT project is something in which Esteve can contribute in trying to develop as quick as possible and to compare this science in a drug and essentially to get population, affected population access to a new vaccine especially to this new vaccine, especially to people more affected like sub saharan Africa.

Janet Barrie:

Partnerships are key to Esteve success it has a long track record in co-marketing pharmaceuticals in Spain selling the same product under different trade names it says increases market share and maximizes sales.

Jaume Masana:

I think that co-marketing is very big in the Spain, because of a number of reasons among them Spanish doctors perceive a new drug as effective and safe if the drug is represented is promoted by different trademarks and by different companies. Second point it reaches a when you invest in promotion in one solitary mark it reaches a point in which the more you invest you don't get the same proportion of increase in sales so by developing a secondary mark for the same active principle then you break this saturation and then you can get higher market share and bigger sales. It is very clear that most important drugs, the so called blockbusters in Spain are sold under co-marketing basis. So any company that is willing to have success in the Spanish market with a real important drug needs to use a co-marketing strategy. Esteve also is has a long track successful record of successful co-marketing collaborations. And why Esteve is so good in co-marketing collaborations? Because we are a partner that we are reliable, we are flexible and we are committed and we are developing and promoting the drugs in a very scientifically oriented manner, in the case of rivastigmine which is a drug that is used for Alzheimer's disease this is a license, we have a license from Novartis and we are co-marketing the drug under the trade name Prometax in Spain mean while Novartis is marketing it under the name Exelon [PharmaDeals ID = 15253] [PharmaDeals ID = 4363], that is their that they're marketing in Spain and in other parts of Europe and the world. In this specific case we got together a market share of 26%, this is the highest market share in the world. As an example I can tell you that you know France for example where the drug is very well sold, Novartis got 15% of market share, so we contributed with 11 added points in the Spanish market share. Esteve is a good partner for this practice because first of all we are very flexible in the type of deal that we get with our licensors, we adapt to the general strategy of the licensor. We are having a very scientific approach to the market, so and we are a reliable partner and a committed partner so we have our long-term runner in marketing so we when we have started to work with the drug, we continue their promotion and investment in the drug until the end of the life of the drug.

Janet Barrie:

Esteve says it's an ideal partner too for strategic alliances, its international joint venture it says mean benefits for everyone.

Jaume Masana:

There are a number of strategic alliances that we have developed in the recent years. The first one I would like to mention is ISDIN, ISDIN is a joint venture company with another Spanish cosmetic group called Puig and ISDIN is devoted to the development and commercialization of a skin care products, currently ISDIN is present in Spain, Portugal, Italy and some countries in Latin America, this is a 50-50 joint venture created more than 30 years ago and with a strong success in the market. Second one I can mention is our joint venture in fact two joint ventures as we developed in China for the production of active pharmaceutical ingredients. The first one was created in 2000 and the second one was just created in 2009. And we this includes two plants in China one is in Yiwu, the second one is in Zhoushan these are cities in the South of Shanghai, our experience in China so far it has been excellent. And now we are thinking in other business opportunities for the Chinese market. And a very relevant strategic alliance joint venture that we created just one year ago was with the Japanese company Teijin Pharma with this company we created Teijin Pharma venture called Esteve Teijin Healthcare devoted to the service of (indiscernable)respiratory therapies. We created this in order to serve at home oxygen and other devices for essentially for Chronic Occluded Pulmonary disease and (indiscernable) and other respiratory conditions. And we give this service at patients home, we have started this joint venture in Spain but the scope is European, so we plan to step in others key European countries in the next year.

Janet Barrie:

Esteve is expanding at home in Spain and around the world, it's reliable, flexible and committed and it says it's moving towards a common goal to be closer to its partners, clients and patients.

Director of Business Development