BioChem Pharma Celebrates 10 Years

The Canadian pharmaceutical company BioChem Pharma, whose major achievement was the discovery of the antiviral lamivudine (Marketletters passim), celebrated its 10th anniversary this month.

Francessco Bellini, president, chief executive and co-founder of the firm, said in an address to the Canadian Club of Montreal, that "a revolution in the understanding of the human body and human disease, combined with significant technological advances, is having a dramatic impact on the approach to research now being undertaken by BioChem Pharma and others."

He said that what the firm did 10 or even five years ago, no matter how good, is no longer good enough. He sees innovation as the key to success. Since becoming a public company in 1986, the firm has grown from five employees to 1,000.