With three generations of pharmacists in its lineage, the French family-owned pharmaceutical eyecare company Laboratoires Théa has a well-established view of the vital role pharmacists play when it comes to eye health.

A privately owned company solely dedicated to ophthalmology and owned by the Chibret family based in Clermont-Ferrand (picture), France, Théa’s story begins in the 1870s with Paul Chibret, a military doctor. While stationed in Tunisia, Paul became interested in trachoma, a contagious bacterial eye infection that prompted him to open a private clinic in 1875. In 1902, Paul’s nephew Henry Chibret – a pharmacist who was himself the son of a pharmacist – founded Laboratoires Chibret, and the company developed a range of eye drops and ointments. 

By 1943, Henry’s son Jean Chibret had pioneered the introduction of preservatives into ophthalmic solutions and imposed an expiry date for their use after opening. Ironically, in 1996, Jean’s son Henri Chibret eliminated the use of preservatives that his own father had introduced, following the increasing recognition that preservative-free eyecare is better for the tear film, ocular surface and structures within the eye.

A UK base

The Théa group now has 30 affiliate offices across Europe, North Africa and South America, with a network of more than 1,500 staff worldwide, and products available in more than 70 countries.

Based at Keele University’s Science and Innovation Park, Théa Pharmaceuticals Limited opened in 2008 as the company’s UK arm. Since then, it has grown from just five staff to a team of more than 70, covering three business units: OTC pharmacy and optometry channels, medical, and surgical across the UK and Ireland.

Working closely with the ophthalmology departments in numerous UK hospitals, Théa’s UK arm initially focused on the areas of dry eye, lid hygiene and eye nutrition, but now offers an extensive prescription and non-prescription preservative-free range that includes allergy, anti-inflammatory, glaucoma, infection, surgery and optometry products.

Pandemic experiences

Since Théa’s UK offering spans several channels, it managed to ride out the pandemic as it was not reliant on just one category or product. It has also invested significantly in pharmacy as a growing part of its business.

“Our sales did take a hit in 2020, like every other company, particularly with cataract surgery being on hold, but things bounced back in 2021,” explains Sheema Mustahsin, Théa’s UK country manager, who has worked at the company for 10 years.

“We had already increased stock levels in response to Brexit uncertainties and although our field teams withdrew from their face-to-face activities in hospitals, optometry and with our pharmacy customers, in line with UK government social distancing rules during the pandemic, we did everything we could to maintain continuity of supply of all our products.”

Expanded education

Built around three strategic pillars of “driving innovation, education and professionalism in improving eye health”, Théa also took the opportunity to add to its educational support for customers during the pandemic, including with a variety of resources for pharmacists and pharmacy support team members.

“We started by increasing our monthly educational webinar programme, which is open to all health professionals and covers a variety of eye-related topics,” says Ms Mustahsin, “with a speaker, Q&A and discussions, and CPD points awarded for each session. 

“Our plan is to expand to offer products for all parts of the eye. At the moment, we are in the front of the eye with Blephaclean, and we have glaucoma drops and dry eye products, so we want to go to the back of the eye next"                 Sheema Mustahsin, UK Country Manager

“We also launched the Théa Academy in September 2021, where eye health professionals – including pharmacists – can download open access textbooks and view on-demand training courses. We currently have 1,458 subscribers and 40 on-demand CPD online training courses where users can save their work as they go.” 

Alongside this, the company supports the prestigious Moorfields International Glaucoma Symposium every January, and the Théa Birmingham Corneal Meeting every spring.

Pharmacy relationships

Last year saw the company divide its large OTC team into separate optometry and pharmacy arms, with more staff recruited to support the pharmacy side. 

“We had been wanting to increase our pharmacy presence since before the pandemic,” Ms Mustahsin says, “and when I moved into the role as head of sales UK in 2021, that’s when we split the team. It had been on the cards for a while as we are well aware of the vital role of community pharmacies as the first port of call for eyecare conditions and are keen to develop stronger relationships with them.”

To that end, the company updated its commercial and patient-focussed training module on different eyecare conditions at the start of 2022, specifically to support pharmacists and pharmacy staff. More than 1,000 pharmacists and support staff have completed the training so far. In addition, the company created a simple overview on managing dry eye and blepharitis as a quick online training module on The Pharmacy Network (see Managing dry eye and blepharitis).

Future strategy

Théa currently offers more than 30 products across a range of key therapy areas serving the complex needs of eye health professionals worldwide, and Ms Mustahsin says the company’s future growth will continue to follow the path of further product launches and acquisitions.

“The pharmacy sector is key in our continued growth,” she says, “evidenced by our expanding sales team and the acquisition of two new products last year – Zaspray allergy spray for patients who find it hard to use drops, and the Eyebag treatment for dry eye, MGD, blepharitis and the symptoms associated with these conditions. We also signed up five new indications in 2021 relating to medical, retinal back-of-the-eye conditions.

“In addition we, of course, have our own internal R&D team, as well as the Théa Open Innovations team, which works with biotech companies to identify, evaluate and support the launch of some of the most innovative developments. We get approached by companies wanting to work with Théa to market their products all the time, and Théa Open Innovations looks at about 400 products a year, but usually only takes on about three or four.”

Ms Mustahsin mentions new products coming to pharmacy in the new year from this pipeline of innovative, patient-focused additions, but won’t be drawn on further details. Suffice to say that Théa plans to grow even further over the coming years, with the goal of becoming the leading ophthalmic supplier in the UK.

“The Blepha range – in which the Eyebag also sits – is the number one selling UK eye cleansing range and the hero, Blephaclean, is the number one selling product,” she says. “Our plan is to expand to offer products for all parts of the eye. At the moment, we are in the front of the eye with Blephaclean, and we have glaucoma drops and dry eye products, so we want to go to the back of the eye next. We also have a couple of products for eye surgery, but would like to find others such as antibiotics or pain relief for the eye that are innovative and preservative-free, and we think these may well come from Théa Open Innovations.”

Staying connected

With the company’s current chairman Henri Chibret also a pharmacist, Ms Mustahsin says that this connection with the sector continues to run through the company’s work. “We are always thinking of new ways to support pharmacy,” she says. “For example, our team works with local pharmaceutical committees to support their meetings and we offer them the use of our boardroom here in Keele and can arrange industry speakers if they want any help with education.”

Théa is also keen to support pharmacist independent prescribers (IPs) and plans to develop future working partnerships with them. “As more pharmacists become prescribers, and there are so many links between prescribable and OTC eyecare products, we are happy to help IPs who want more education on eyecare,” says Ms Mustahsin. 

“Théa Pharmaceuticals is committed to supporting all ophthalmic professionals and to having a positive impact on the eye health of all those who use our products, as inspired by our global parent company,” she adds. “So of course it makes perfect sense to work closely with pharmacy, which is, after all, such an integral part of our heritage.”

Further information

Find out more about Théa and its product range and access the Théa Academy.