Health Issues in Kamaria
There were two major health issues in Kamaria at the time. The first one was Hepatitis B. Hepatitis B in Kamaria has almost a 10% carrier rate, which means 1 in 10 Kamarians are prone to Hepatitis B. And the second big issue that was rising rapidly in Kamaria was resistance to antibiotics. Antibiotic resistance had now reached close to 18%, which meant that lots of frontline antibiotics were no longer effective amongst close to 20% of Kamaria’s population. So most of the drugs that we were trying to register were high end vaccines for Hepatitis B and also the better antibiotics that we had in our portfolio, because Laurent has always been a world leader in both vaccines and in antibiotics and continues that leadership today. So, we knew the need was there, we knew the consumer problem was there, and we also knew that our products were significantly superior in delivering the remedial action compared to the drugs that we were getting registered.
Pharmacists, Ajith noted, were a key population that Laurent needed to reach in order to make any progress against antibiotic resistance. “I don’t think too many Kamarian pharmacists know what it is to deliver a prescription and not under-deliver a prescription, and also educate consumers of the need for giving the full antibiotic dose as opposed to under-dosing themselves.”
It would not be possible for Ajith to undertake such a marketing campaign himself until he was able to convince the Kamarian government to issue registrations for Laurent Pharmaceuticals products:
