Associated British Foods (ABF) has a varied portfolio of companies, ranging from Primark department stores to British Sugar and Twinings Tea to SPI Pharma. Each of the companies operates fairly independently under its own CEO. Being part of ABF is highly beneficial to SPI Pharma, as they provide resources and expertise that a midsize company such as SPI Pharma would not typically have in house.
It provides us and our customers with the best of both worlds. We have the flexibility, responsiveness and creativity of a midsize company with the depth of resources of a large company.
A strategic move
In early 2017, SPI Pharma embarked on a 10-week strategy project to design our future. We began by answering the question: “Where are we today, actually?” The questions wasn’t about where we think we are from a historical perspective or aspirationally, but where we truly are, using a critical eye, with input from across the organisation, along with extensive market data and feedback from our customers. Setting this baseline was, interestingly, the most challenging and time-consuming part of the process. Even so, in a relatively short timeframe and with the participation of approximately 30% of our employees from various disciplines and levels, along with our Voice of the Customer, we learned a great deal about our company. Most importantly, the process gave us a shared view of our opportunities and our path forward. Our strategy work led us to make some structural changes, one of which was the creation of two strategic businesses units. Prior to this, the business was managed by a shared commercial team. The two business units are Antacids & Catalysts, and Excipients & Drug Delivery Systems (EDDS).
Antacids & Catalysts: The strategy made clear that the market drivers and innovation needs for antacids and catalysts are quite different from that of the EDDS portfolio. SPI is a key player in the antacids market, and we want to grow our position and our reputation as an innovative, flexible partner to our antacids customers.
Excipients & Drug Delivery Systems:The EDDS business is focused on solving problems for our customers. With our formulation expertise, and broad portfolio of products and technologies, our team of scientists takes a solutions-based approach. They develop answers to formulation challenges that result in patient-friendly dosage forms that are designed to encourage medication adherence, including specialised paediatric and geriatric formulations that support our customers’ product lifecycle management, and allow them to derisk their projects while increasing speed to market.
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