Joe Veilleux is the general manager of Euromed USA, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of standardized herbal extracts used by pharmaceutical and nutritional supplement companies in their healthcare products. He is a licensed pharmacist who received his MBA from the University of Virginia’s Colgate Darden Graduate School of Business. He has worked in management for U.S. pharmaceutical companies, including a position as the director of marketing for a prescription drug division of Sanofi-Aventis. He also started the U.S. operation of Lichtwer Pharma and successfully launched America’s first herbal supplement sold in the U.S. mass market. Joe represents the U.S. interests of Euromed’s parent company Rottapharm/Madaus. Those responsibilities include an ongoing $10 million clinical trial program Rottapharm/Madaus is currently conducting for its saw palmetto and milk thistle extracts in partnership with NIH and NCCAM.
 
Health E-Insights: Where did this great idea of forming the Glade-iator project come from?
 
Mr. Veilleux: The idea came from our company’s selfish business interest in protecting all the various plant materials we need to make our products—in this case saw palmetto. Nearly all of it comes from Florida where land development seems to be never-ending. This development encroaches on the natural plant habitat, including saw palmetto’s habitat. So we have an interest in protecting Florida’s current habitat but such conservation efforts are not an area of expertise for us. So we tried to identify an organization that has been very successful in their efforts to protect the Florida natural habitat and we quickly became aware of the Everglades Foundation. They are a very well organized, well-funded and very successful Florida habitat conservation organization. Their board is a who’s who of industry, politics and the arts and includes Jack Nicklaus, Marshall Fields, Jimmy Buffet, and others. We contacted them and discussed how we could help them be even more successful and the Glade-iator program was developed. It is a public-private initiative designed to help save the natural Florida habitat, including the Everglades and its surroundings, which encompasses saw palmetto growing areas.
 
Health E-Insights: Has Glade-iator been quick to be accepted by the saw palmetto marketplace and your customers?
 
Mr. Veilleux: Yes. The reaction of our customers has been terrific as we sell to saw palmetto product manufacturers and they have an interest in seeing the conservation effort to save Florida natural habitats succeed as well. We recently kicked off the program and we already have more than half of our customers who have agreed to partner in the effort. If you go to our website, www.Glade-iator.org, you will see that we have the corporate logos of seven of these partners there and you can link to these companies from this website.
 
Health E-Insights: Just what is being done to fight back against environmental pollution in the Everglades?
 
Mr. Veilleux: Check out the Everglades Foundation website and you can learn of all of their successes, including getting large acreages of land designated as protected, monitoring regulations and seeing that existing laws protected the environment are enforced and probably most importantly doing a lot of scientific research to document the value of these habitats and uncovering the keys to helping save them for generations to come.
 
Health E-Insights: How will you determine the success of this project?
 
Mr. Veilleux: We feel we are being successful already as our manufacturing company customers have embraced the program and we are hopeful that they will reach out to their customers and consumers to get even more people interested in this important conservation program. If your company makes or sells a saw palmetto product, or if you are a consumer who takes a saw palmetto product then you should help in this initiative because it will ultimately benefit you. Quantitatively we will be measuring visitors to our website, the number of partners signing up, and ultimately the amount of money being donated to the Everglades Foundation. It is much too early to know how much has been donated in these first weeks but we are committed to donating at least $10,000 in this first year, and with the reach of our customers and their consumers we are hoping that the annual donations to the Everglades Foundation as a result of this program will be more than $100,000. We also see this as a long-term ongoing program that we hope to continue for years and not just 2011.
  
Health E-Insights: What are you passionate about?
 
Mr. Veilleux: I am passionate about my work and keeping people healthy. I was trained as a pharmacist and I have worked in the management of pharmaceutical companies, natural health supplement companies and now with Euromed, a natural health product ingredient manufacturer. My personal goal is to do all that I can to help people get and stay healthy.
 
Health E-Insights: Do you have any advice to pass on to our readers?
 
Mr. Veilleux: Don’t put anything in your body unless you know all you can possibly know about it, and that includes drugs, supplements and foods. You should learn as much as you can about the company supplying the product, and the sources they use for the ingredients. This is especially true for supplements where it is sometimes difficult to know if the product you are using is a good one.
 
 
For more information and interview consideration, contact Sheldon Baker at sbaker@bakerdillon.com or visit his website at www.bakerdillon.com. And check out his blog at www.NutraInk.com.