New hope for South Africans with multiple myeloma

Johannesburg – Friday 26 February 2021: Local oncology company, Eurolab, has launched South Africa’s latest lenalidomide generic, allowing South African cancer patients suffering from multiple myeloma to receive life-saving treatment previously only available to the top 0.1% of earners. Lenalidomide is listed by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as an essential medicine, yet many patients in South Africa die of multiple myeloma because they cannot afford the treatment.

Eurolab Group CEO, Lynne du Toit, says, “In keeping with our vision to bring down the cost of cancer treatment and expand access to care, we are proud to announce the launch of Eurolen, South Africa’s first lenalidomide generic.

“Historically, the only lenalidomide product on the market cost over R60 000 per box. Over an average maintenance course of treatment, a patient needed to pay over R720 000 per year. Most medical aids cover R200 000 per year for cancer treatment, leaving patients to fork out a co-payment of over R520 000 for a chance to survive their cancer.

“Eurolen costs R8 711 per 25 mg box. By slashing the cost of treatment down by over R10 000 per month, we are offering renewed hope to South Africans fighting multiple myeloma. Patients who are treated with Eurolen will therefore be fully covered by their annual medical aid oncology benefit.

“Furthermore, treatment of multiple myeloma can last eight years and beyond, meaning that patients needed to pay some R4 million in co-payments. It was clear to us that something needed to be done: the cost of lenalidomide in South Africa is out of reach for most people.”

In multiple myeloma, a type of blood cancer, cancerous plasma cells accumulate in the bone marrow and crowd out healthy blood cells. Rather than produce helpful antibodies, the cancer cells produce abnormal proteins that build up throughout the body and damage organs.

Du Toit explains that, “Internationally and locally, the originator of lenalidomide has long been associated with profiteering at the expense of cancer patients. Currently, there is an ongoing United States enquiry regarding the price of the lenalidomide originator, where executives continue to receive massive salaries directly related to the price of the drug.”

Eurolab was founded in 2011 on the principle of improving access to cancer treatment by making cancer medication more affordable. Since its inception, this innovative oncology company has driven the price of cancer medicine in South Africa down by as much as 53% in molecules in which it competes compared to an average price increase of 31% in molecules in which it does not compete.

Du Toit concludes, “Today, patients are paying less than half of what they were in 2010. Our strategic focus remains on driving down costs, enhancing care and making more treatments, therapies and technologies available to cancer patients.”

The post Eurolab slashes cancer treatment costs again first appeared on Eurolab.

No short cuts, no substitute for hard work

 Lynne Du Toit, CEO of Eurolab and one of the few women leaders in South Africa’s pharmaceutical industry, shares her story about building her career in the face of the whirlwind of work demands and family responsibilities. 

After qualifying as a Registered Nurse in 1980 and then enrolling for a further year to qualify as a midwife, I worked in a predominantly all-women environment where the trainee doctors and academic professors were mostly men.

I entered the corporate world as a medical rep in the early 1980s, and the situation was much the same – medical reps were mostly women and the management teams primarily men!

I realise that much of this had to do with the added roles and responsibilities that many women take on as wife, housekeeper and mother while growing a family. Men, on the other hand, retain the roles of provider and breadwinner.

40 years on – more women in more senior positions 

How the tables have turned over the four decades that I have worked in the medical industry! More and more women are rising into more senior positions, and I salute every one of them – especially the women I have the privilege of working with at Eurolab every day.

My current position has also afforded me the honour of getting to know like-minded women in both professional and corporate capacities. They keep me humble, and at the same time, they inspire me to be the best that I can be in every sphere of life.

No substitute for hard work, commitment and dedication

For both men and women, there is no substitute for hard work, commitment and dedication. There are very few instant success stories on the same level as winning the lotto! This is simply not reality.

What is reality, however, is that as you enter your career, as a woman, you will most likely still want to get married and have a family. You will still be the one who goes through pregnancy and stays at home weaning a new-born. Then, depending on what drives you, you will either be back at work after four months or you will try something new to give you the flexibility you might want in order to raise your growing family.

The risk here is that when you re-enter the corporate environment, many of the middle-to-top positions will have been taken up by the ambitious and aspirant men in the organisation.

Add this to longer hours, more travel to build relationships with customers and increase your knowledge in your field, conferences and strategy sessions which often go on long into the night and sometimes over weekends. Many women will drop out at this point if they don’t have a stable support network at home or through guilt.

Giving my all in each moment

I have had so many conversations with myself and with God about whether I would make it through this whirlwind of work demands and family responsibilities. Still, most often I would come out of these ongoing debates in my head and heart, without a clear answer, but with an earnest desire to put one foot in front of the other and give my all in the moment I was in, whether that was at work or at home.

Do I have regrets? Plenty! Mostly for the moments that I missed during my children’s growing years. Corporate companies did not see any ‘behind the scenes’ – you were an employee (man or woman), and you were tasked and measured against the results you produced.

And when you are an over-achiever (nowadays referred to as OCD), you cannot rest until the results are in. During the early years of building my career, using early mornings (2am to 4am) to catch up and plan was commonplace. This included studying, strategising sales, completing marketing assignments as well as planning school lifts, meals, uniforms, activities, care givers and camp preparation for my children while I was away.

There is just no short cut or way around it – and then, when the tea was placed on the boardroom table it was sometimes expected that, as the only woman in the room, I would be responsible to ‘serve’.

Words of women for younger women wanting to pursue a career in the medical and pharmaceutical industries

The advice I have for younger women wanting to enter and achieve in the medical industry is:

• Decide on your motivation – is it to provide the best for your children; money and possessions; power and position; personal achievement?
• Decide on your goals – is it middle management, senior management, executive level or shareholder level?
• Know that there will be sacrifices to be made almost every day, mostly of your time and resources, and some will be very difficult.
• Know that there will be obstacles requiring all of your strength and some of these will be insurmountable.
• Know that failures will happen along the way and you will make the wrong choices.
• Know that you will be in a constant battle with male colleagues for the ‘top spot’ and office politics will be rife.
• Involve your family and children wherever you can in your decisions – especially when it concerns or affects them.
• Always have a good back-up or support system that you can rely on.
• Teach your children good values, morals and ethics – in my case Christian values.
• Find happiness and joy in your work and your achievements – love what you do!
• Aim to always do things better than yesterday!

Eurolab – encouraging growth at every level

At Eurolab we have created opportunity for those who want to succeed – men or women. We have provided equal opportunities based on a person’s skills, attitude and aptitude for a particular job – and have encouraged growth at every level. We involve as many of our staff in as many areas of the business as possible. Whether it be developing new strategies, marketing campaigns, new business ventures – we believe in teaching what we have learnt over the years to the next generation and empowering them to rise up to take the business to the next new and exciting level. We believe in giving them responsibility and allowing them to make mistakes and learn from them; we encourage them to share new ideas and mostly we encourage our staff to be involved in problem solving and come up with solutions.

The challenges facing women in business are enormous because of our emotional attachments – but stay humble, pray, listen and think before you speak, learn as much as you can about your business, its products, your customers and their needs and the people you work with both above and below you in order to get the best out of them to make your company successful!

The post Profiling our CEO as part of Women’s Month first appeared on Eurolab.