The portrait of the day takes us to Morocco, to meet Mia Lahlou Filali. She is the head of Pharma 5, the leader in generic drugs in Africa. With 1,800 employees, it produces 400 types of generic drugs, and has notably developed a complete treatment against hepatitis C. Pharma 5 exports to 40 countries, mainly in Africa. It is currently developing a production unit in Côte d’Ivoire. Mia Lahlou Filali took over the family business in 2012 from her father.
Mia Lahlou Filali is a dynamic and talkative woman. This Friday morning, its management committee is gathered around a basket of pastries. The employees describe their director without light.
« The force, it does not let go », « Me, I say rebellious, woman of challenge, relentlessly, she follows objectives gradually », « Eye of the tiger », « revolutionary », « There is a lot of empathy, she understands how we work, how we manage. She knows how to guide us delicately », « she knows us and takes the time to get to know us », « she’s a big dreamer, she knows how to take us into her wildest dreams”, “a big dreamer. Madame Mia is a big dreamer, me in the international department I like to have a person like that who dreams without limits », « perseverance, when she thinks about something, she is a visionary, she is a dreamer and even if we as a management committee say no, we are not going to get there, she is always there to tell us that we will get there, and we always get there “, there is no shortage of complimentary qualifiers for him.
Pharma 5 is a family business created in 1985 by his father. His sister, Yasmine, manages the industrial, research and development part. And if Mia Lahlou Filali was bathed in the sector all her childhood, it was not obvious that she would take over.
“Dad fed us this. My sister is an industrial pharmacist, myself, I started by doing a year of pharmacy at the University, so much was it inoculated into the blood. I hated pharma, so, in the end, I did Dauphine, I did Sciences Po Paris. I worked for 10 years at LVMH in luxury perfume and cosmetics, so a priori nothing to do with pills and suppositories. But dad, who is a very modern, very progressive militant, dad is Muslim, but he raised us as free women, capable of taking over such a business. And my mother also has something to do with it. But he’s the Muslim man who said my daughters will be able to, who sold his box to his daughters when they were 20 because otherwise, when you don’t have a brother, you have cousins who enter into the inheritance. Well, it gave us the means to assert ourselves in this business and to ensure sustainability,” she says.
She founded a family in France, married a Corsican lawyer, had two boys. But in 2012, the call to return home is great. A choice she does not regret.
« Luckily I did. I would be at LVMH or elsewhere. Well that was great, I was having a blast. But the meaning I found here. Acting for care for all on a daily basis. You know why you are getting up. Even if it’s wonderful to sell dreams on perfume, you don’t stand up for the typo of what’s going to be on the bottle so that it’s rock, chic or aristocratic. There, you stand up for people to live, it’s extraordinary. And when in addition it’s in your own business, that you have your hands completely free, because we are two shareholders, my sister and I, so we don’t have other shareholders who expect dividends at the end of the year and which prevent us from investing. What happiness, what love! We reinvest everything we earn “says the business woman.
Patriot, she says she is guided by paternal precepts. He continues to advise his daughters. And his plans for the future remain at Pharma 5.
“So where do I see myself in 10 years? Still in Pharma 5, with several factories on the continent, maybe even a factory in Europe. I would like Pharma 5 to be a small multinational, in any case, it is our dream. And by having demonstrated to the world too, Morocco’s ability to produce very high quality medicine, that is something acquired today, but Morocco’s ability also to be a driving force in major scientific advances. , she exclaims.
Among her hopes: to be a pioneer in medical advances, particularly in therapeutic cannabis.
► Also to listen: Morocco: the Pharma 5 laboratory, flagship of the African pharmaceutical industry
