In the competitive world of optics staying in business for a decade is cause enough for celebration. So it is no surprise the booming UK wing of Thea Pharmaceuticals threw an open day event to mark its 10th anniversary having started with just two employees at inception to 56 now working in its state-of-the-art new offices and around the country today.
Philip Lewis Williams, UK managing director Thea, is one of the original two and pays tribute to the efforts of his staff in the company’s success.
‘It is going very well and we’ve met a lot of great people along the way,’ he says. ‘Initially it was all about establishing a presence for Thea’s preservative free products in the UK market, which is unique in many ways to the rest of Europe. We’ve made some very good contacts in both the optometry the medical fields. We do not sell to the supermarkets; our products are only for eye care professionals. They are a very loyal group and we support them. As a company we believe in education, professionalism and innovation, these underpin everything we do. That has seen us make a big impact and today is a celebration of the efforts that everyone has put in.’
The innovation on the product side comes from the parent company based in Clermont-Ferrand, France.
‘The company started nearly 25 years ago by my uncle,’ says Jean-Frédéric Chibret, president of Thea. ‘It is still a family owned and independent company focused on ophthalmology and eye care, eye products. I think it helps us to be different to most companies which are part of big multinationals and eye care concerns are a small part of the whole. We only deal with eye care and are 100% dedicated to preservative free products for dry eye, allergy, eye lid hygiene, glaucoma, antibiotics and eye nutritionals.’
Thea’s rapid growth can be attributed to its pioneering role in the preservative free revolution.
‘Thea was the loudest voice championing it for many years based on research that had come largely out of France,’ says Professor Christine Purslow, head of medical affairs at Thea. ‘Now the weight of evidence has collated behind this approach and it is a natural thing to look for products that don’t have more excipients in than necessary. This is important because you are often dealing with delicate skin or chronic disease which needs daily treatment for years. I think the profession has learned the hard way that you cannot put drugs with excipients on the eye without consequences like toxicity, sensitivity and dry eye on top of whatever the original condition was.’
Purslow points out that the International Glaucoma Association now recognises 60% of people with glaucoma will have dry eye, probably as a direct consequence of the treatment they receive.
‘All our glaucoma products strive to avoid that,’ she adds. ‘We aim for better compliance, better treatment and ultimately better outcomes.’
The UK branch has grown from two to 56 staff over the decade
Education is another part of the triumvirate that Thea focuses on. The company won the Optician Award for Optical Supplier of the Year in 2012 thanks to its groundbreaking training courses.
‘It was about educating optical professionals to look out for dry eye and treat it as a chronic long term condition,’ says Williams. ‘That made a big change because people who took our training went on to set up dry eye clinics, promote the idea of ocular hygiene along the lines of dentistry, and promote Thea products. Since then we took on Christine and she leads our education with our external customers. Just as importantly we have reps who are very well trained and offer service to practices including clinical studies and a good preservative free story for consumers.’
So what can a practice getting in touch with Thea for the first time expect?
‘The first thing is our Eye Health Champion training which can be for an individual or an entire staff,’ says Purslow. ‘The training works with a mixed audience really well. That been the secret of our success in many ways – getting support staff to fully understand the benefits of the products.’
‘Materials we provide to practices include a recommended eye care routine sheet, which we found is really useful in helping patients remember what products have been recommended for dry eye or blepharitis in the consulting room,’ adds Deborah Hunt, product manager Thea. ‘It is designed for an eye care professional to quickly tick the appropriate products and then the front of house staff can, because they have been trained on the products too, talk the patient through the benefits in full. We aim to help at every stage of the patient journey.’
Professionalism is the third value that Thea is based on and this is epitomised by the new offices at Keele University.
Many happy returns
‘It’s important to have a central hub where everyone, including field based people, feel part of the team. We are also very keen to have links with universities,’ says Williams. ‘We worked very closely with Cardiff and Aston in the early days. Why are we at Keele? I came to Keele as did Helen Owens, the other original member of the team. Formerly we were up on the Hill and now we’ve come down to this new state-of-the-art site thanks to the support of the Thea board. Being a family company these decisions can be made and
implemented very quickly. We are reinvesting all the profit from the company back into education, and taking the model to other countries too. We are working in Canada, the Netherlands and Nordic countries now and will be working with optometry schools around the world.’
‘We join in at Keele wherever we can,’ adds Purslow. ‘At the medical school, pharmacy school, forensic science and we also take interns. It is a nice connection, they need industry collaboration and we can demonstrate real world evidence that what they are doing is relevant.’
Williams ends with a tribute to the optical practices who have made Thea’s success possible.
‘Without them we wouldn’t be here today,’ he says. ‘We’ve got a huge debt to our customers and I thank them very much for their loyalty. We want to continue repaying that loyalty through new products and education.’