Fausto Hernández, CEO at ValidPro, explains the unique business model of the company as well as the high added value of its qualification and validation services; offering integral solution that position ValidPro as the regulatory partner of choice for the pharmaceutical industry.
Could you please introduce yourself to our international audience as well as the key activities and operations of ValidPro?
I have been professionally involved in the healthcare and life sciences industry for more than 30 years, heading diverse roles in several leading pharmaceutical companies. This broad experience has given me transversal knowledge of the industry from different points of view. In January 2013, two people and I decided to found ValidPro, and since July 2016 I have been in charge of the company.
The mission of ValidPro is to offer validation and qualification services to national and international clients to provide them with support in regulatory compliance as well as to enhance the national health system. Since its conception, ValidPro has experienced strong growth both in sales and market penetration, serving leading pharmaceutical companies. In order to remain competitive, we are currently reshaping the strategy of ValidPro to adapt its operations to the latest industry trends and, therefore, continue experiencing such outstanding performance.
What have been the main accomplishments of the company since its foundation in 2013?
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It has not been an easy journey but we have obtained positive results as a consequence of the high added value of our services as well as the reliability of our clients. In this sense, positioning ValidPro as the partner of choice of leading international and national pharmaceutical companies in less than four years has been our biggest accomplishment so far.
What has been your strategy to ensure the success of ValidPro considering that Mexico is a quite dynamic and challenging market with several regulatory changes?
The strategy has been based on having a comprehensive and integral perspective of the industry supported by strong networking and high professional teams. Indeed, quality has been always a key driver of our operations and I was fully aware that, in order to deliver the best service, I needed to build up an organization with extensive experience as well as transversal knowledge of the pharmaceutical industry.
ValidPro offers its services for a broad array of segments within the healthcare sector and the expertise of our teams has enabled us to fully understand the needs of our clients but also the inherent dynamics of the industry.
What are the priorities on your agenda as CEO of Valid Pro?
As ValidPro is currently passing through several strategic and structural changes, the main topics on my agenda are building up a strong professional team to offer top-notch services to our clients, and identify new business opportunities. Expanding on the second point, we expect to present a real new Validation tool at the next Expofarma in April 2017.
How has your 30 years of experience in the healthcare and life sciences industry been a lever to succeed in ValidPro?
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As aforementioned, such a background has helped me to understand the entire healthcare and life sciences spectrum. Hence, I have leveraged on my prior experience to rapidly grasp my clients’ needs as well as challenges, allowing ValidPro to speak the same language as its customers and offer the most accurate solutions according to their demands.
ValidPro has a broad portfolio sorted out in two major divisions: validation and qualification. Could you expand on the added value that ValidPro is bringing to each of its divisions?
Even though they are different business divisions, both operations are correlated. On the one hand, validation services consist in going directly to our clients’ plants in order to analyze their staff, equipment, machinery, and other concerns to determine the gaps of improvement to comply with the current regulations. On the other hand, the qualification services offer training courses to the employees of the companies we work with and train them so that they can ensure the compliance with the regulations themselves; this service is more continuous.
What is your breakdown of revenues per division?
Validation is the main contributor representing approximately 70 percent of our turnover. Nevertheless, I expect to obtain strong growth from our Training division in the upcoming years. Indeed, I strongly believe that training should be the commercial path of development since it gives more sustainable and healthier business; thus, it offers an integral and continuous solution to our clients; positioning ValidPro as an extension of their regulatory department.
ValidPro is the regulation and best practices partner for pharmaceutical and biotechnological companies that need to qualify or validate their operations. What is your footprint in each one of these markets and in which do you foresee most growth?
80 percent of our revenues come from the traditional pharmaceutical industry or allopathic medicines players. However, we are fully aware that biotech is the future of the industry since it is the new focus of the government to treat patients suffering from chronic diseases. Even though we have already started to expand our services into this segment, it is quite challenging to keep up the pace with the regulatory area in the biotech sector since it is continuously evolving.
Human capital is one of the most important assets in your operations; how does ValidPro attract, retain, and develop its professionals to maintain such quality in its operations?
Human capital remains at the core of our organization and therefore, we are continuously investing in attracting new talent as well as in developing our current teams. As a consequence, I am proud to confirm that ValidPro has very strong technical and sales teams that ensure the highest quality of our services.
ValidPro partners with several private organizations to offer a more complete and integral solution. Could you expand on your partnership strategy to further develop your offering?
We always look for partners that share the same values and business practices as ValidPro in terms of quality and customer-centricity. We have stayed focused to such an approach and thus, we have had very successful partnerships so far. In this sense, ValidPro currently has four strong partners that really help us bring the quality of our services to the next level.
One of your objectives as CEO is to drive the internationalization of ValidPro; how is this process advancing?
ValidPro is already enrolled in international validation projects with well-established pharmaceutical companies that have a global presence. Our intention in the short term is to leverage on our clients’ infrastructure to expand our operations internationally; particularly in countries like Colombia, Argentina, and Brazil.
What are the key objectives that you would like to achieve in the coming three years?
As aforementioned, one of my main objectives is to continue building up the best team that will ensure the highest level of quality of our operations. The business development of ValidPro is also one of the main topics on my agenda and, therefore, I expect to expand our footprint into new niches such as biotechnology as well as new international markets within Latin America.
What is the final message that you would like to share with our international readers as well as your current and potential clients?
Our added value proposal is to offer an integral solution to our current and potential clients both in terms of validation and training systems, which is currently quite uncommon in the market. We strongly believe that such a business approach will help us to gain market share while bringing high value to our customers.
