The spread of the COVID-19 virus around the world has led many governments to take drastic measures aiming at containing and slowing down the spread of the virus and protecting people and healthcare systems.
To contribute to this effort, Minakem has implemented since last week, a crisis management taskforce. Our two priorities are the following:
- To protect our employees and partners working on our sites as well as the neighboring communities.
- To ensure business continuity for our pharma customers and their patients.
Our measures are aligned with French and Belgian authorities’ recommendations and will be updated and adapted as needed and advised.
-
Protection of our employees & partners and neighbouring communities
We have a plan in place at the company level, and we are taking all necessary preventive actions at all our sites to enforce social distancing. It includes:
- defaulting to remote work/home office whenever possible by deploying all necessary IT tools
- discontinuing all business travel, external on-site visits, intersite visits UNLESS THEY ARE CRITICAL FOR BUSINESS CONTINUITY
- conducting all meetings remotely through IT tools we will provide
- discontinuation of any training except the ones that can be organized remotely
- ensuring a security distance of 2 meters for employees working on-site for all activities
- implementing the advised cleaning, disinfecting and decontamination procedures on all sites
- providing the recommended personal protective equipment for all employees and partners while working on-site and enforce their use if needed
- take the necessary and advised steps immediately when employees show symptoms that might point to a COVID-19 infection (cough, fever)
-
Ensuring business continuity for our pharma customers and their patients
Minakem is a supplier of APIs, intermediates, and building blocks used to deliver medicines to patients. In this critical role, it is essential that we maintain business continuity to support the pharma supply chain, and consequently, the patients.
For each of our development and manufacturing sites, we have worked out business continuity plans taking into account local specifics.
Our plans cover clear actions to address:
- all risks that could affect our operations related to critical activities, human resources, supply chain (raw materials, and individual protective equipment).
- Different working scenarios in terms of employees that are absent/quarantined.
- We are maintaining a critical level of resources needed to run operations
Together at Minakem, we think we are taking the right measures to ensure the continuity of services and supply of medicines for the pharma community and the end patients.
Thierry Durand
Managing Director Minakem