We Conducted a Pleasant Interview with Mr. Cem Öztürk

We conducted an interview with Cem Öztürk, Head of Foundation Sanofi Turkey, Middle East & Africa and Country Lead Sanofi Turkey about the sector and the company. Cem Öztürk shared with us how the pandemic affected the pharmaceutical industry and the company's work. Enjoy reading.

Could you tell our readers about yourself?

I graduated from Galatasaray University, Department of Business Administration in 1998. After graduation, I completed my MBA at Sorbonne University. I started my career in the banking industry in 2000. Since joining Sanofi in 2002, I have held several different leadership positions at country and international organizational levels. I was appointed CFO for Romania and Moldova in 2007 and worked for four years. I returned to Turkey in 2011 as Business Excellence Director. I subsequently took on management responsibilities for the Pharmacy Group Sales Team, Supply Chain, and Hospital Group Key Units. In 2014, I was appointed Specialist and Primary Care Business Unit Director and Leader of Generic Divisions, managing a team of 300 people. In 2015, I was appointed General Manager of Bangkok and Country Chair for Thailand and Myanmar in an overseas assignment. In 2018, I began working as Sanofi Turkey Country Chair and General Manager. In 2019, the Levant region and Iran were added to my area of responsibility. Currently, I work as Country Lead Turkey & Foundation Community Head for Turkey, Africa & Middle East.

Could you tell us about Sanofi's activities in the sector and operational structure in Turkey?

We are a global company with strong local operations that contributes to Turkey's healthy future through investment, production, and job creation. With over 1 billion dollars in investment, we are the pharmaceutical company with the highest investment among global pharmaceutical companies in Turkey. We are the first company to invest in local vaccine production in Turkey. Turkey is also the first Sanofi country to benefit from this kind of technology transfer. Through this vaccine technology transfer, 68 million doses of combined childhood vaccines were produced in Turkey, protecting 99% of children in Turkey from vaccine-preventable diseases. This vaccine represents Turkey's first biotechnology production in its field. Our manufacturing facility in Lüleburgaz is the 3rd largest production facility by production capacity among Sanofi's 70 production centers worldwide. Our factory alone met 15 percent of total Turkish pharmaceutical industry production in 2021. We export 11 percent of our total production to 49 countries, including Germany, England, France, Australia and Japan. We are honored to contribute to our country's economy by producing 86 percent of Sanofi Turkey's product portfolio on a box basis locally.

Sanofi recently unveiled its renewed brand identity and purpose. Can you share this transformation with us?

As Sanofi, we are undergoing an exciting corporate transformation. We introduced our new corporate brand, which supports the modernization and transformation of our company. We began this work in December 2019 and announced it to the world in February this year. This evolution represents our ambition to transform medical practice and our purpose to pursue the miracles of science to improve people's lives. Over the last 50 years, we have made many discoveries that improve human life, from diabetes to cardiovascular diseases, from rare diseases to infectious diseases. For years, Sanofi's commitment to public health has protected hundreds of millions of people against influenza annually and contributed to eradicating polio from the world, while the company's scientific vision enables it to offer innovative healthcare solutions for treating inflammatory diseases. This transformation sends a powerful message about who we are and what we aim to achieve: We pursue the miracles of science to improve human life. We know that new treatments for diseases are always possible, and we are never satisfied with existing solutions. We continue our activities with the belief that better treatments can always be discovered, driven by curiosity and the desire to innovate, always advancing science.

You announced that through this renewal, you are bringing different departments and companies within Sanofi under one roof, correct?

Yes, since our establishment we have operated a wide variety of cultures, identities and brands within our structure. Sanofi's new brand builds on this rich heritage and brings together our diverse history for the first time under a single unified identity. Accordingly, the company's vaccine-focused business unit Sanofi Pasteur and specialty treatment-focused Sanofi Genzyme, along with all previously acquired brands, are now combined under a single Sanofi name and brand. For many years, these brands have become symbols of the impact of innovation on human life. Thinking and acting around a new shared purpose and identity as one company will position Sanofi to more strategically direct its resources toward producing key innovations, placing the company in a position to create greater impact for patients.

With the COVID-19 pandemic, the importance of the pharmaceutical and vaccine industry has emerged once again. Can you provide information about Sanofi's efforts in this regard?

First, I must say with pride that we have been among the companies at the forefront of this struggle from the very beginning. Today, two-thirds of our medicines and vaccines are designated by the World Health Organization as essential medicines. During the pandemic, we maintained uninterrupted operations at our production and distribution centers, particularly our Lüleburgaz factory and our Tuzla distribution center. Our global vaccine research programs began actively from the start of the pandemic. One of these initiatives involved strengthening our partnership with GSK toward a common goal: developing an adjuvant COVID-19 vaccine and producing sufficient quantities for millions of people. Sanofi and GSK have now submitted regulatory applications, presenting data from both the immunity-boosting booster vaccine and Phase 3 efficacy trials as the basis for regulatory filings for the COVID-19 vaccine. In parallel with these efforts, we continue to contribute to global public health needs by producing up to half a billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines for three pharmaceutical companies.

Could you tell us about the role of R&D in your overall activities? What does R&D mean for Sanofi? How extensive is it? Are there any particular R&D projects you expect to have significant impact in the coming period?

Sanofi, with its mission to improve human life, prioritizes the most critical health needs and allocates 15 percent of its worldwide sales to R&D annually. As of December 2021, our company's R&D pipeline includes 91 projects, 34 of which are in Phase 3. The stages of our work are also shared transparently on Sanofi's website.

How is Sanofi's approach to social responsibility shaped? Can you tell us about your social responsibility projects in Turkey?

We realize Sanofi's global Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) commitments in our country as well, and we continue our leading role in CSR with considerable effort under the motto #wecandomore. At Sanofi Turkey, sustainability is integrated into all our business priorities. Our new roadmap and commitments, organized under the titles of Access to Healthcare, R&D for Unmet Needs, Healthy Planet and Inclusive Workplace, directly contribute to 13 of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals announced by the United Nations. We are keenly aware of our responsibilities as a good corporate citizen. As Sanofi Turkey, we contribute to the "continuity of health" through corporate social responsibility programs we have been running for many years to help address social problems. With our Diabetes at School Program, now in its 11th year, we work to raise awareness of diabetes among students, parents and teachers, and to improve the quality of life of children with diabetes in schools. We also undertake initiatives on equal opportunities and education that will contribute to social development. Our "Women Leaders of the Future" project, which we have successfully implemented for 11 years in cooperation with KAGIDER, is one of these. Through the program, we have reached 1,250 young women with our training sessions and awarded the "Women Leaders of the Future" certificate. 92 percent of program graduates continue to advance their careers and make us proud by actively participating in business life.

What are your sustainability goals? What actions are you taking toward your carbon neutrality target?

Supporting the ecological needs of our world is of great importance within our "Healthy Planet" priority, one of our company's sustainability pillars. By taking an important step in this direction in Turkey and as a result of our investments, we switched to 100% renewable electrical energy at our Lüleburgaz factory starting in 2020. Subsequently, we began using 100% renewable electricity at Sanofi's Tuzla Warehouse and Sanofi Head Office. To minimize the environmental impacts of our global operations and production, we have set specific targets: producing 100% blister-free vaccines by 2027, implementing 100% ecological designs in all new product packaging by 2025, transitioning all our production facilities to 100% renewable energy sources by 2030, and making our vehicle fleet 100% carbon neutral by 2030.