In an exclusive interview, Benjamin Liuson, president of The Generics Pharmacy in the Philippines on the company's illustrious history, remarkable growth, and increasing acceptance of generics more generally in the Philippines. The Generics Pharmacy originated from a family business and you are the visionary who transformed it into what it is today. How did you conceive the shift from wholesale distribution of medicines, to opening a generic pharmacy in Quezon City? [Featured_in] The company started in 1949, owned by Germans, and my parents bought the company in the 1960s. During that time we were already importing and wholesaling medicines. I joined the company in 1975. At that time we followed the regular model of a pharmaceutical company – we hired detailmen and we would give them two to four weeks training. However this system was not working for us, because out of ten detailmen that we hired, maybe there were one or two really good, but the good ones would leave our company to join multinationals or the bigger local company. After years of adopting the same system we decided to change. In 1983 we started to go for the lower-price system. The price of medicines in the Philippines is very high, normally we would multiply the cost four to five times to have a 75-80% gross margin. The reason why you need 75-80% gross margin is that you need to hire not only detailmen, but also supervisors, brand managers, product managers, sales managers and marketing managers. All this would cost you about 20%. Then, detailmen need to give samples everyday, and that will cost you another 15-20%. Furthermore, some pharmaceutical companies are giving benefits to the doctors, that would cost 20-30% and it is added to the price pushing it higher. During the 80s we started another system: we decided to cut all our marketing costs, saving 20%. Moreover, we stopped giving samples, saving another 15%. With these we were able to offer a low price and sell directly to drugstores, hospitals and to different companies. In the year 2000, some doctors of government hospitals sent patients to our office to buy medicines. As a distribution company, we were not allowed to retail products. To serve these patients we opened the first “The Generics Pharmacy” in 2001. The Generics Pharmacy sells only generic medicines and was immediately patronized by the masses. In 2005/2006 we had customers making 4 hour car trips all the way to Manila to buy our medicines, and all of them were asking why we would not open stores in their areas. Seeing the need for expansion, we decided to franchise The Generics Pharmacy in 2007. We sought the help of Francorp who developed the franchise system for us. Now, there are 930 stores operating nationwide providing safe, effective and quality generics medicines to all. We open an average of 300 stores a year. In fact they say we are the fastest growing franchise business and we were awarded the most promising Filipino franchise in the retail category in 2009.

"We open an average of 300 stores a year. In fact they say we are the fastest growing franchise business and we were awarded the most promising Filipino franchise in the retail category in 2009."