“Good governance is a key driver at Pharmaniaga – a Malaysian based pharmaceutical company that holistically practise integrity, transparency and compliances in its business operations and management."
Pharmaniaga Berhad (Pharmaniaga) is an integrated healthcare solutions provider that provides a wide spectrum of businesses which includes logistics and distribution, manufacturing of generic pharmaceuticals, sales and marketing, regulatory affairs, distribution of medical products and hospital equipment as well as community pharmacy. The company was established in 1998 and registered in Malaysia.
Its customers consist of more than 1,200 Malaysian government hospitals and clinics, hundreds of private hospitals and clinics, retail pharmacies and other institutional bodies in the country. Pharmaniaga’s business operations have also reached out to nine other countries namely Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Brunei, Singapore, Hong Kong, Macau, Maldives, and Papua New Guinea. Pharmaniaga is the biggest pharmaceutical company in Malaysia and has both upstream and downstream businesses; from the formulation of medicines at research and development level, up to prescribing them at the company’s community pharmacy outlets.
Pharmaniaga adheres to the internationally recognised Pharmaceutical Inspection Co-operation Scheme’s (PIC/S) stringent requirements for Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) and Good Distribution Practice (GDP) as well as the ISO certifications.
As a Malaysian government-linked company (GLC), Pharmaniaga has developed strong ties with the government agencies and bodies that would give its potential partners leverage in exploring pharmaceutical-related business opportunities in Malaysia.
In addition to that, the company has also created a high performance culture by embracing the core values of Respect, Integrity, Teamwork and Excellence. This is followed by the implementation of a carefully planned series of activities throughout the year in order to form a strong and bonding working culture. The Do It Right Campaign (DIRC) has been a corporate fixture since 2015, with activities planned until 2020, specifically targeted to create a compliance culture by encouraging and inspiring staff to carry out their duties diligently while impacting positively on work processes.
Human capital is the most important asset for Pharmaniaga, thus the company offers a wide range of learning and development opportunities which include regular in-house and external trainings that focus on technical and soft skills. The company also practises 360 Degree evaluation which enables subordinates to rate their superiors. There is also a deep understanding of the differences between the millennial and older generations of staff leading to different people management styles of these two groups.
This employee engagement strategy netted the company high scores from the Employee Engagement Survey (EES) which was conducted by Aon in 2016, and saw Pharmaniaga scoring 76 percent for its level of engagement between the company and employees. This was nine percent higher than the Asia Pacific norm/average. Staff retention is further achieved by competitive staff benefits, various incentives (birthday leave, meal subsidies, car loan interest subsidies, tuition subsidies for employees’ children and many others) and team activities organised to create a feel-good working environment for employees.
With the rise of healthcare and medicine costs becoming a huge challenge for pharmaceutical companies, Pharmaniaga is mitigating it via various measures including enhancing operational efficiencies and prudent cost management. The company has also executed upgrading pogrammes of the plants and increase the use of automation to cater the growing needs for quality and safe medicines amongst the public. Pharmaniaga is also becoming a major player in the halal industry, with majority of its manufacturing plants were certified halal by the Department of Islamic Development Malaysia (JAKIM) in 2015. The company’s product portfolio stands at 430, including 62 products that are obtained halal certification. It is expecting to have more than 200 products that are certified halal by end of 2018. Good governance is a key driver at Pharmaniaga. It is a company that is totally against the habit of employees sweeping issues under the carpet. Its management believes that action like this would only jeapordise the issues faced by the employees or the company. The pharma giant encourages team decisions to ensure all opinions are sought after and heard. It also drives home the importance of employees adhering to all established processes, a step that inculcates the compliance culture of DIRC which endeavors to do things right the first time, and all the time.
