72 Business View - February 2016
MANUFACTURING
have set up shop in Malta in the span of the preceding
four or five years.
One great advantage to begin operations on the Medi-
terranean archipelago was the fact that very few drug
companies have registered their patents there. Thus,
unlike within other EU countries, where companies
are prohibited from developing generic versions until
their original patents have expired, Maltese firms can
work on their generic formulations, unhindered, mak-
ing finished products available for delivery on the first
day after a patent expiration verses waiting months, or
even years, later.
Much of Siegfried’s recent, vast growth has taken
place as a result of the aforementioned company
strategy known as “Transform.” The Transform strat-
egy was an initiative put in place by Siegfried’s CEO,
Dr. Rudolf Hanko, in 2010. Dr. Hanko’s aim was to
combine the firm’s two divisions – drug product and
drug substance - into one, in order to leverage its com-
bined service offering, and become a full-fledged ser-
vice partner supporting the entire product life cycle for
customers in both the chemical and pharmaceutical
industries. (Drug substances are the chemical syn-
theses of an active pharmaceutical ingredient, or API;
drug substances are not ready to be used in human
body. Drug product is the finished formulation; the tab-
lets, capsules, injections, etc., ready for safe human or
animal use.) So a string of acquisitions ensued.
“In 2012, in order to offer a broader range in drug
product, we also invested in injectables by buying a
small company in Irvine, California, called AMP (Alli-
ance Medical Products),” says Späne. In 2014, Sieg-
fried also bought the German company, Hameln Phar-
maceuticals Ltd., another supplier of quality injectable
solutions. “And to become a player in China, we de-
cided to invest and build our own site from the ground
up, in Nantong,” she says. “We see the Asian market
as the most important emerging pharma market; thus,
proximity within Asia will be very important in the fu-
