This Pharma Company Embraces the Task of Helping Pinoys Bounce Back in Their Wellness Journey

International Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (IPI)—the corporation behind household brands like Casino Ethyl Alcohol, Dr. S. Wong’s Sulfur Soap, Bioderm Germicidal Soap, Omega Pain Killer, and Efficascent Oil—has played a huge role in helping the Filipinos stay healthy for over 60 years. 

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, this role has expanded beyond providing quality health and wellness products to the market as the company ramped up its corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts through projects that aim to help Filipinos bounce back from the health crisis.

On its website and social media channels, IPI shares guides on how to stay safe during calamities like earthquakes, floods, and fires, including infographics on managing work-related stress, caring for the family, and avoiding health issues. These thoughtful reminders are part of the company’s diversification of its reason for being, which is helping people and promoting wellness on top of manufacturing wellness products and essentials.

These initiatives made an enormous impact during the pandemic as the country found itself in lockdown. Having identified the major needs of the people, the company gave out essentials and food, and promoted information drive while cooperating with the government’s efforts to mitigate the pandemic.

IPI saw the role it could play in helping Pinoys adapt to the new normal, both as a manufacturer of quality wellness products and as a public health advocate. In fact, the company actively conducted donation drives of essential products to various sectors of the community like LGUs, hospitals, schools, municipal jails, and barangay health centers.

It also participated in community pantries that mushroomed from different areas to help alleviate the economically-challenged families when lives and jobs were lost. IPI also partnered with TV networks in their efforts to deliver help to the farthest barangays in the country.

The pandemic, subsequently followed by Typhoon Odette last December, posed a different challenge. Visayas and Mindanao were greatly hit. As a provider of health and wellness products, IPI continued to be part of the Filipinos’ lives.

Their versatile operation and the resilient spirit of their employees allowed the company to continue its mission of taking care of the people by providing wellness to every Filipino. The typhoon may have brought severe damage to the country's infrastructure, but not to the resilient spirit of the Filipino people.

Here are just some of the internal and community initiatives the company brought out over the past two years:

• Giving of sacks of rice and other essential products during the enhanced community quarantine for all IPI employees nationwide

• Donation of millions worth of Bioderm Germicidal Soap and Casino Ethyl Alcohol to GMA Kapuso Foundation and ABS-CBN Lingkod Kapamilya Foundation

• Donation of essential products to hospitals, health centers, LGUs, and non-medical COVID frontliners

• Donation of essential products to persons deprived of liberty (PDL)

• Various relief operations to disaster-stricken areas nationwide through IPI Foundation

• Onsite vaccination for all Cebu-based employees together with family members

Guided by the core values that the company upholds, IPI will continue to partake in the missions that were started by its founders.

When the next generation asks what IPI did during the pandemic, the company can proudly say that it provided care for the people, helped provide wellness to everyone, and lived out their reason for being.