WEST CEO LISTENED, THEN MADE CHANGES
Eric Green has reorganized the 94-year-old company and believes its growth will continue
UWCHLAN » When Eric Green started as president and CEO of West Pharmaceutical Services some two years ago, he knew the first thing he had to do.
“I sequestered myself for three months after I came here,” said Green, who succeeded longtime West CEO Donald E. Morel Jr. “And I listened.”
He used the time to ask the company’s top executives, “How can we build a strong West for the future,” Green recalled during a recent interview at the company’s headquarters in the Eagleview Corporate Center where he uses a standing desk in his office.
“That is what business is all about — collaboration,” said Green, a proponent of staying active.
Using the answers he received during those first months as CEO has helped Green reinvigorate the 94-year-old company, a maker of drug delivery devices.
“We are growing at all locations and we’re bursting at the seams here,” said Green, who
“What West is really good at is drug and material interaction. New delivery devices will drive our growth.”
– West Pharmaceutical Services CEO Eric Green
took the top post at West after serving as Sigma-Aldrich Corp.’s executive vice president and president of its research business in St. Louis. “We’re almost out of space.”
Green and West’s executive team developed a new strategy to push the company’s growth.
In January 2016, West said it will no longer operate two separate units for its packaging and delivery system businesses. Instead, it established global Commercial, Operations and Innovation & Technology organizations to work on offerings to all of its customers.
Along with the change in structure West announced new executives and new positions for existing employees to incorporate
the changes.
The results have been positive, according to the company’s most recent reports, including:
• 2016 earnings of $1.5 billion with 9.1 percent organic sales growth;
• 2017 first quarter earnings of $387.7 million with 8.7 percent organic sales growth;
• Employment that went from 7,100 at the end of 2015 to 7,300 at the end of 2016. Green predicted the company will add around 200 to 250 employees a year company-wide for the foreseeable future. West has 900 employees in Pennsylvania, with about 450 of them in the Exton headquarters and the region.
• 2020 targets of $2.22.4 billion in sales and a 19-to-23 percent adjusted operating profit margin.
• A rising stock price. The company’s stock closed Friday at $93.62, up from the $77.79 it closed at a year ago.
West today has 28 manufacturing sites and 50 locations globally.
“I get excited everyday when I talk to our leadership team,” said Green, “I hit all 28 sites in a year.”
West produces approximately 41 billion components every year, or about 112 million components each day. Those components are used in the packaging, containment and delivery of injectable medicines around the globe.
Beyond the numbers, though, are individual patients, Green said.
“That’s the biggest thing, providing the safest,” he said.
The company’s number of defects is less than 100 per billion, well below industry expectations, said the CEO, who relocated to Bryn Mawr with his wife and three girls when he took the West job.
The new global commercial team will drive growth across three markets, Green predicted: Biologics, Generics and Pharma.
The new Innovation & Technology team will provide the products that will give the company an advantage in the future, Green predicted.
“What West is really good at is drug and material interaction,” Green said. “New delivery devices will drive our growth.”
New formulations, particularly in the biologics
space, and devices patients can use in their homes to self dose will be growth areas for the company in the future, Green said.
Last July West announced the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the use of its SmartDose technology for use in the U.S. with Amgen’s cholesterol lowering drug, Repatha.
“West is very pleased that Amgen has selected the SmartDose technology platform for the new monthly single dose administration option of Repatha,” Green said at the time. “The combination ... is an example of how West closely collaborates with our pharmaceutical and biotechnology partners ...”