Service Excellence Award for Medica

March 2011

Along with a number of other suppliers, Medica Packaging, the pharmaceutical specialist business of the Benson Group, was presented with a Service Excellence Award for its work in the production of packaging for Jevtana, a new drug produced by Sanofi-aventis for patients suffering from prostate cancer.

The drug was to be launched in the US market once FDA Drug Approval had been granted. This happened on June 17th 2010. On the same day, the company provided approved artwork and a purchase order to Medica Packaging and asked the company to pull out all the stops!

Just five days later Medica delivered printed cartons to the customers Dagenham, Essex, plant, and finished drug product was ready for shipment to the USA by June 30th for launch in early July 2010.

Commenting in its own newsletter, Sanofi-aventis said of the launch: "We worked very closely with our key suppliers of the printed packaging components. They were pre-warned of the impending requirements for the Jevtana pack. As a result they were fully aware of the importance and urgency of getting the components to us within days . . .

"They were able to see from the focus which we were giving to these components that this was not a routine product launch and they responded very positively to our requests."

Jevtana is approved in combination with prednisone for the treatment of patients with metastatic hormonerefractory prostate cancer (mHRPC) previously treated with a docetaxel-based treatment regimen. Jevtana is to be administered intravenously. Jevtana was granted fast track designation by the FDA in November 2009. The rolling new drug application (NDA) submission was completed in March 2010 and was granted priority review in April 2010; Jevtana was approved by the FDA less than three months later. Jevtana is expected to be available as a marketed product in the United States this summer. A registration dossier of Jevtana is also under regulatory review by other regulatory authorities, including the European Medicines Agency.

"Good supplier performance is the standard which we routinely expect from our key suppliers. However, in the case of the Jevtana launch, certain suppliers were challenged to exceed their standard level of service performance."

Picture caption from left to right:
Nigel Crookes, Strategic Development Director, Benson Group;
Tony Holland, Business Development Manager, Medica Packaging;
Gordon Barham, COGS Purchasing Leader, Sanofi Aventis;
Peter Voce, Key Account Manager, Medica Packaging;
Keith Greasley, General Manager, Medica Packaging;
Sarah Serlenga, Sales Director Pharma, Medica Packaging.