Talking Business is a podcast review of the Australian economy, presented by seasoned business journalists Leon Gettler and Garry Barker, produced in association with the RMIT College of Business. It features interviews with prominent business leaders and expert analysis from RMIT academics.
Interview
Jarrod Ritchie is the founder and chief executive of TPI Enterprises, one of the world’s largest independent producers of legal opiate drugs, such as morphine and thebane. The latter, derived from the opium poppy as are morphine and heroin, is used in combating drug abuse. TPI enterprises is based in Tasmania, the only Australian state permitted to grow opium poppies. Mr. Ritchie competes with major producers of legal morphine in Spain, Turkey and elsewhere, two of whom, GlaxoSmithKline and Johnson & Johnson, have large processing plants in Australia, also using poppies grown in Tasmania. He is an industrial chemist who previously worked for GlaxoSmithKline but, having left that company, developed his own extraction process using an environmentally friendly water-based system whereas competitors use an older method employing chemical solvents. He has also been involved with Israeli botanists in developing a new strain of a more productive opium poppy.
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[podcast]http://itunesu.its.rmit.edu.au/sites/default/files/itunesmedia/tlkbus47a.mp3[/podcast]
