Meet Jason Yates, founder of CST Pharma Group Holdings
Jason Yates has been sole owner of CST Pharma Group Holdings for four years and co-owner for 15 years and has grown the group exponentially – with nearly twenty businesses now operating within the group.
CST’s overall growth is down to Jason’s business acumen and his decisions to continually diversify the business into new markets. Jason bought out the business in 2018; since then, he has skilfully strengthened the board with leading industry experts to assist in his successful drive for quality, operational and financial enhancement.
This has enabled the business to grow and thrive despite the challenges of COVID and c20% of the firm's historic sales not being viable due to Brexit. Jason has also identified lucrative complimentary opportunities and management teams he can joint venture with and sponsor/support to realise their potential and share success.
1/ What does your business offer its target audience?
CST Pharma Group Holdings is an innovative and entrepreneurial group of pharmaceutical companies with each business being a specialist in its field. We feel that this brings intimate knowledge of our customers and their requirements, which enables a personalised experience for all. Taking examples from within the group, CST Pharma Limited, which is our pharmaceutical wholesaler and parallel import licence holder of over 800 branded pharmaceuticals, medicines and devices, makes the final mile of deliveries to community pharmacies.
2/ How do you set yourself apart from other businesses in your industry?
The history and heritage of CST Pharma Group Holdings is based on total regulatory compliance with strong commercial results. This is now the DNA of every business we have within the group. For instance, when it comes to the UK aesthetics industry, where regulation is constantly changing and evolving day to day, we ensure Acre Aesthetics, our cutting-edge pharmacy which operates within the aesthetics sector, is continually protecting its customers and keeping them compliant. We feel this sets us apart. We make sure we support and guide our clients, which in turn keeps their patients safe.
We also have a dedicated in-house regulatory team which when combined with a custom-built state of the art compliance system and technology makes Acre Aesthetics unique in the industry today.
3/ With all the success stories around entrepreneurship and how innovative people have to be to take the leap. How do you think you’ve innovated your sector and why?
I think with us having a group structure and a strong board team made up of leading industry experts – we can continually learn and develop which I feel enables us to remain agile and innovative.
One of the other businesses in the group, Synertech, which provides pioneering and superior surgical solutions to improve operating room efficiency and deliver better outcomes for patients and clinical clients, has a stand-out new product which I think really showcases the innovation within CST Pharma Group Holdings.
The new product is named, Synertech Dural Repair, and it’s a first of its kind. A Dural Tear can occur during spinal procedures and until now there has not been a specific surgical kit with all the correct instruments included available to surgeons. We saw the gap in the market and went about creating one. Our kit has now meant that surgeons have exactly the right tools on hand, that are fully sterilised and ready to go.
4/ What plans do you have for ‘your business’ over the next two years?
Now Brexit is done, we are looking to improve our footprint across the group’s businesses in Europe through partners and subsidiaries.
For instance, our Spanish operation, Saima, which is a worldwide supplier of medicines, parapharmacy and cosmetic products will be looking to advance its PI distribution, whereas our aesthetics pharmacy and wholesale arm has its eyes set on growing its presence in Ireland. We have also just launched Cosmedic Limited, an aesthetics pharmacy, which only serves registered medical professionals.
5/ Any new product launches we should know about?
Yes, we have several new products that we’ve recently launched in various markets across the group. As previous mentioned, Synertech has launched the world’s first single use Dural Repair Kit, to much success.
UTH Aesthetics, has in the last year launched its expertly crafted dermal filler range for aesthetic practitioners that is a culmination of ground-breaking science and 18 years research. The product is unrivalled in its quality, safety, effectiveness, and cost.
We are also currently working with a manufacturer developing our own orthopaedic product which we intend to distribute globally - including the USA.
And finally, we have brought to the UK market - QR 678 - which is a revolutionary hair regrowth treatment created by leading, globally recognised surgeons and doctors. It has had huge success in other territories and has over 25,000 successful patient journeys – so we can’t wait to see how it changes lives here.
6/ How does technological advancement speak to the strategic direction of your business?
Across the group we are always looking for ways to adapt, develop or digitise our processes to drive efficiencies and become more sustainable.
Like many other businesses we are working towards being carbon neutral – with our timeline aiming for 2025. Amongst a whole host of activities, we are focusing on reducing our use of paper, implementing solar panels, and moving to an all-electric fleet.
In particular, Acre Aesthetics, our cutting-edge pharmacy, comes to mind as adopting technology to establish and then grow its business. Since its inception in 2018, the team literally ripped up the rule book on how to market and sell a business’s services to its customers. Instead of a bricks and mortar pharmacy like many of the existing market leaders in aesthetics, Acre opted to be just an e-commerce business - only trading online.
Rather than an exclusively direct sales model, with an expensive sales team, we decided to embrace the power of social media, utilising its variety of channels to drive brand awareness and product availability.
That’s not been easy, when the ASA says you can’t advertise licensed medicines and that’s half of the business’s portfolio. In some instances, the team launched brand new products with no track record exclusively via social media to great success.
However, as much as technology is a godsend – we will never forget the human-touch. We believe that technology and people need to work hand in hand to continue our overall success. Ultimately, we still believe that people buy people, so social media is important but it’s just another direct sales channel that’s bolstered with our field sales and telesales people. Furthermore, social is just one of our digital channels we use, not the only one.
Social media works to drive new customer registrations, brand awareness and sales in harmony with Customer Retention Optimisation (CRO). CRO means that Acre can use other digital channels like email, SMS or telesales to speak with its existing customers to improve retention, sales and customer service.
Perhaps the biggest impact though from a technology perspective was our ability to sell licensed medicines safely online within a regulatory framework whilst still maintaining an intuitive and simple user experience. Over the last two years alone, Acre Aesthetics have developed proprietary Pharmacy Management software, including one click dispensing, encrypted and secure online prescription platform and a stock management system including PO.
Just like every part of our business the technology underpins the process not the other way around.
Ultimately, across the group we utilise technology to keep patient’s safe, client’s compliant and ensure the many businesses in operation are efficient.
7/ Is it still possible to build a strong and successful business without social media. If yes or no, why?
Yes and No . It really depends on the business, the sectors in which it operates and its target audience.
For instance, for us CST Pharma Group Holdings is only just starting to use LinkedIn. Whereas Acre Aesthetics, Cosmedic, and UTH Aesthetics have used social media since their inception. They all acquire, educate, and inform their customers via social media channels.
8/ How much time do you spend on things that don’t add customer value?
All the companies spend as little time as possible on things that do not add customer value.
But I have to say, nearly everything we do has our clients or the end user - the patient, in mind. Even aspects such as our stringent quality systems, do drive customer value.
9/ What are some ways in which you are breaking data and analytics to find opportunity / strengthen processes?
We will always strive to improve – and we understand the true benefit and value of diving deep into any data and analytics your business has. Therefore, for Acre Aesthetics and Cosmedic we now use the Salesforce platform which helps us to segment our customers and their preferences - allowing us to more effectively market services and products of interest to them.
10/ Thinking about the future, do you have any strategic partnerships or upgrades in the pipeline?
We are currently finalising a partnering agreement with a manufacturer for our own branded orthopaedic injectable line. The product will be marketed and distributed worldwide, including the USA. It’s an exciting time.
11/ Why do you think your business has had such a positive impact across your industry?
I think one of the core aspects that enables the many businesses to continually impact our clients, the end user - patients, and our industry as whole in a positive way, is our understanding and compliance with regulations.
We feel we are leading the way in our industry – so I hope this will make our competitors take stock and review their own processes, creating a more compliant and safety-focused sector than ever before.
I also want to talk-up how CST Pharma, which is our pharmaceutical wholesaler of branded pharmaceuticals, medicines and devices that provided intensive care medicines to NHS England during the covid pandemic. As well as stepping in to fulfil shortages of particular medicines to hospitals across the UK. We really hope the small part we played helped make some difference in such a difficult time for the UK and beyond.
