Video: Dr. Stuart Koe, former Fridae CEO and current ICM Pharma head helps children of incarcerated parents

[groyn88]

On 3 December 2024, The Straits Times featured 51-year old Dr Stuart Koe, managing director of home-grown pharmaceutical company ICM Pharma, whose efficiency and productivity were not just business goals, they were pathways to giving back to the community. The company was behind many products in Singaporeans' homes probably without their knowing it, including Mycoban anti-fungal cream, Growell scalp lotion and RidWind baby drops.
Led Dr Koe, the home-grown outfit was focused on how to “get better”, its brand motto. It wanted to modernise its operations to make a greater impact on its 120 employees and its community of clinics, pharmacies, hospitals and patients that it served. This mission was deeply personal for Koe, who discovered the true meaning of community during his own transformative journey. “I made some huge mistakes and spent almost five years in prison. You lose everything – your identity, your reason for being. It could easily have destroyed me,” he shares candidly, adding that he was jailed for drug trafficking in 2018. “What got me through this was my family and my ICM Pharma family. Many of them came to visit me in prison and they gave me a second chance to make things right. It is because of them that I asked myself, ‘Do I want to keep repeating these mistakes, or do I want to learn and grow from this?’”
Koe chose to transform his experience into a force for good. Coincidentally, it was during this time that he met Awful Grace’s counsellors, who taught pottery to inmates. Awful Grace was a charity organisation that reached marginalised communities, as well as groups deprived of certain rights, privileges or access to opportunities, in Singapore. The counsellors’ humanity and compassion left such an impression on Dr Koe that ICM Pharma now actively supported Awful Grace’s work with children whose parents were incarcerated.
“I’ve met so many fathers in prison whose biggest regret is not being able to be there for their children,” said Koe. “If we can help just one person break out of that vicious cycle of crime or poverty, then it’s a life worth living for.”
He also wanted to put his technology expertise to good use, transforming and modernising ICM Pharma’s manufacturing operations. “When I took over from my late father in 2014, it was very old-school,” he recalled. “Everything was done with pen and paper. I had to literally force people to use spreadsheets and compel them to stop using the fax machine.” At the time, while ICM Pharma had made progress, orders still came in through manual channels, with customers having to call or email sales representatives. Its delivery tracking system relied on phone calls to drivers, and as a manufacturing facility spread across multiple units, it needed better connectivity between its production, warehousing and distribution operations. ICM Pharma needed to upgrade from manual processing and basic connectivity infrastructure to better serve its network of hospitals, clinics and retail pharmacies. 
With Singtel’s help, it aimed to improve not just internal efficiency but also how quickly and reliably it can deliver medications to Singaporeans. Singtel’s senior director of product team Amanda Ho said: “I’m excited to share how Singtel can help transform ICM Pharma’s business operations, especially in the areas of connectivity, security and workflow optimisation. “Our solutions aim to help its employees become more efficient and productive, ultimately benefitting both their customers and the community as a whole.” To support its transformation, Singtel upgraded the firm’s connectivity and tech, starting with its business broadband with Static IP and SD-WAN (Software-Defined Wide Area Network) technology to create a more seamless and secure connectivity layer between its manufacturing, warehousing and distribution facilities. This allowed ICM Pharma to manage its network centrally and optimise data routes to improve its application performance. For example, the ability to prioritise traffic by application could help to reduce latency, which is important for its upcoming B2B e-commerce portal for clinics and pharmacies, resulting in faster response times and smoother transactions for its corporate clients. Additionally, Singtel implemented a fleet management system for ICM Pharma’s delivery vehicles. Now instead of phone calls to the drivers to check on delivery times, the pharmaceutical company could set automated alerts for its vehicles, use data to optimise routes and improve delivery efficiency.
One of the achievements that Dr Koe was proud of was that the ICM Pharma digitalisation journey had led to an increased number of employees, not a reduction. The firm was poised to expand its impact while staying true to its motto: Get better. As Koe explained, “It means our people get better, our patients get better and our community gets better. That’s what drives us forward.”

Links:

https://the-singapore-lgbt-encyclopaedia.fandom.com/wiki/Stuart_Koe

Edited December 4, 2024 by groyn88