Boyne Drummond introduced our guest speaker Catherine Murphy by first mentioning the Walsh Memorial Scout flying School which is an annual event taking place at Matamata, aerodrome in January of every year stop the courses a two week long training camp providing aviation training for those who would wish to learn to fly and gain employment in the fly in industries.
In the two weeks students are at the flying school they end up flying solo 7 to 8 hours flying time in their logbooks. Many of the students learn to fly before they learn to drive.
Ordinarily our club sponsors at least one student to the flying school every year.
Boyne then very neatly segued into introducing Catherine first as a Walsh Flying School parent and secondly as director of New Zealand operations for Seqirus NZ.
Catherine Murphy’s son Isaac participated in the Walsh Memorial scout flying school and is now positioning himself to apply to the Royal New Zealand Air Force as a pilot trainee.
Catherine told us that Isaac has been to the Walsh Memorial scout flying school twice the first time as a student and secondly a 2nd year trainee and has greatly enjoyed it on both occasions.
Catherine during working hours is the Director of Commercial Operations in New Zealand for Seqirus NZ.
After graduating Auckland University with a degree in architecture Catherine changed career paths and has ended up working in the pharmaceutical industry in the past 25 years.
She has been working with Seqirus the past 12 and has been in her current role for the past 12 years.
Catherine gave us a overview of Seqirus’ activities in New Zealand and an insight into how governments plan for disease outbreaks and pandemics.
Seqirus is a lineal descendant of what was formerly the Australian Commonwealth Serum Laboratory established in 1916. The role of the Commonwealth serum laboratory was to manufacture anti venom serums, flew medicines stop in 1994 Commonwealth serum laboratories were privatised and various offshoots of the company were incorporated to undertake the company’s various activities.
CSL pharmaceuticals was set up in New Zealand in 1991. In 2006 changes name to CSL by therapies and after a number of name changes in company amalgamations Seqirus was incorporated to become the second-largest influenza vaccine company in the world.
The company has its headquarters in Melbourne and operates major facilities in Australia Germany Switzerland USA and Japan employing over 11,000 staff turnover of in excess of $8 billion.
Catherine told us that Seqirus makes the seasonal influenza vaccine is held in stock in anticipation of annual fluid epidemics.
Catherine noted that Seqirus is presently the biggest chicken farmer in Australia as the vaccines are cultured using eggs as the base. Consequently some hundreds of thousands of eggs are required leading to massive chicken farming operations.
There is presently taking place a change from egg-based production to sell based production. This means the eight week process required to produce an egg-based vaccine will shrink significantly. Costs will also reduce as egg-based vaccines are very labour-intensive to create.
There is significant expense however in moving to cell based production techniques as new factories will need to be built in self-confidence the amount of money.
Catherine told us there is an ongoing risk of flu pandemic in Australasia. New Zealand has been lucky in that the last two seasons have been mild but there is always the risk of a pandemic such as the Spanish flu which killed many people in the early 1900s. So there is always significant stocks of flu vaccine available as well as, somewhat depressingly, 50,000 body bags in storage.
Seqirus also manufactures antivenoms, especially for the Australian market as there are many creatures in that country that bite, sting, scratch and otherwise eat humans, so it follows that antivenens are strong product category offered by the company.
Catherine gave us an indication of Seqirus’ relationship with the Crown and other pharmaceutical manufacturers. It’s a trusted supplier to the private market and the government enters into contracts for the provision of pandemic preparedness.
Catherine’s address was an interesting introduction to the world of big Pharma and how companies such as Seqirus work away quietly in the background doing essential work that doesn’t attract the media columns, unless it all goes wrong.
