The Rural Voice, 1986-08, Page 14CANADIAN FARM TACKLES
RESEARCH ON VIRAL DISEASES
Vetrepharm is involved in the exciting development of immunostimulants used
to treat viral diseases
by Alice Gibb
Keeping up with Graeme
McRae, a seemingly tireless
Australian, is like trying to keep up
with a whirling dervish. McRae
drives fast, talks even faster and
always seems to be on the run. In
the last few years, he's visited
China, Malaysia, and South
America, to name just a few of his
jaunts abroad. The reason is that
McRae is president of Vetrepharm
Inc. of London, a company that
develops and markets pharmaceu-
tical products for veterinarians.
Last year, the seven-year-old firm
sold $3 -million worth of vaccines
and other drugs. Despite that im-
pressive showing, Vetrepharm has
yet to pay one cent in dividends to
the veterinarians who pooled their
funds to start the company. In-
stead, any profits made by
Vetrepharm are plowed right back
into research and development and
now, that research is about to pay
off. Graeme McRae, a salesman
extraordinaire, dared to challenge
both the Canadian banking system
and the multinational drug com-
panies and now it looks like
Vetrepharm just might win that
challenge.
McRae, son of an Australian
farmer, was a marketing salesman
for a giant drug company when he
was transferred to Canada a
decade ago. Once he was resettled,
McRae became increasingly
unhappy with the inflexibility of
the multinational companies in
serving the Canadian market.
Dr. Stan Alkemade, a Seaforth
veterinarian and fellow Aussie,
shared McRae's frustration.
Alkemade, who recently joined
Vetrepharm as director of
technical services, says in Australia
there is a tradition of small phar-
maceutical firms creating specializ-
ed products. McRae's plan to
bring that tradition to Canada
caught Alkemade's interest and he
was one of the first of 33 South-
western Ontario veterinarians to
invest in what became Vetrepharm
Inc.
When McRae decided to take on
the multinationals, he had two
goals for his company. Initially
Vetrepharm would get marketing
rights to international drugs and
vaccines not available in Canada.
The long term goal, and the one
that excited many of the investors,
was McRae's plan to eventually
develop and market entirely new
products under the Vetrepharm
name.
"Three years ago, 80 per cent of
our sales were someone else's pro-
ducts; today 80 per cent are
manufactured and developed by
Vetrepharm," McRae notes with
pride.
Vetrepharm, with a staff of 40
including four PHds, three
veterinarians and two micro-
biologists, is located in an
anonymous industrial mall in
southeast London. But by next
January, even the office staff will
be working out of new quarters at
the company's research laboratory
and farm near Putnam, east of
London.
Dr. Stan Alkemade of Seaforth, who recently joined Vetrepharm
as director of technical services, is one of the firm's original
shareholders. Alkemade says the company's research into im-
munostimulants means the firm "is right at the forefront of it all."
12 THE RURAL VOICE