The chief executive officer of The Wellbeing Company, a South African-based medical trading firm, told VOA his organization’s aim is to provide “the highest quality medicines” to improve the quality of life to South Africans who cannot afford needed medications.
Darryl Combe said his company is an efficient and entrepreneurial business which provides effective, relevant and sustainable healthcare solutions with what he described as an altruistic business soul.
Combe said his company offers affordable yet high quality products to the mass market by keeping its overhead low and passing the savings onto the consumer.
“Our main objective is to make a wide range of medicines available to the South African consumer. We want these medicines to be of the highest quality, yet we want to price them so that they are very affordable for the average person on the street,” said Combe.
“What we do as a company is that, instead of spending the bulk of our money (on media advertising budget on) the above the line media, we are actually starting to employ a lot of people. Within South Africa, we have unemployment in excess of 25 percent; so one of our objectives is to employ people.”
He said the distribution and reach of the medicines his company provides ensures that people in the outer rural areas have access to basic healthcare products.
The Well Being Company said it identifies relevant cosmetic and medical consumer products of high quality and forms distribution, selling and marketing alliances with suitable, like-minded partners in order to create exceptional commercial viability for all involved.
Combe expressed confidence his company will soon expand into other countries in Africa to provide what he said was quality, but affordable medicines to the poor on the entire African continent.
“What we see in Africa is a lot of dumping of medicines, so you get the real cheap medicine. But, the reason they are cheap is that they have actually cut corners in terms of the quality. (We) have come in using the brand leader as our benchmark instead of safety and efficacy. Yet, we have come in at a substantial lower price (medicine) because we cut cost out of our overhead bill as opposed to cutting cost in terms of product quality.”
