Drug maker Terapia forecasts 45% growth in 2005

Drug maker Terapia Cluj-Napoca estimates its business will grow by 45% in 2005. Forecasted sales for this year point to $50 million.

Terapia created around $35 million in sales in the first nine months of this year, already exceeding last year’s level of around $33 million. Terapia’s turnover after the first nine months of last year reached $23 million.

The main reason for the growth in turnover was the company’s focus on an active sales policy, the Terapia general manager Stephen Stead told Ziarul Financiar. Another contributing factor was the growth in the overall drug market, which may reach $950 million this year.

Stead did not rule out the possibility of acquisitions in the near future, saying that Terapia was considering both products and companies on the Romanian market.

The company’s coming investments will include expanding their bioequivalence laboratory, warehouses and offices. Terapia also began a $10 million investment programme for environmental protection, which will entail modernisation of the company’s entire production platform over a three-year period.

According to Stead, the investment will help bring about an increase in sales, launch new products and aid debt curbing.

Terapia will soon introduce three new products on the market: Fosinopril, Indapamide and Diltiazem Bupivacaine. This comes after having already launched four new products this year. The costs involved in launching a new product on the market amounts to more than $100,000.

Terapia’s policy aims to expand its operations to the cardiovascular, central nervous and muscular-skeletal systems. Around 16% of Terapia’s output is exported, mainly to Russia, the Ukraine, Poland, the Baltic States and the Central Asian countries.

The company is owned by US financial group Advent International, which bought 95% last year in a deal worth $45 million.

Previously the company was owned by a group of financial investors, who began a complex streamlining process in 2000, entailing the halving of the number of personnel, formation of a new management team, investments to achieve GMP compliance (Good Manufacturing Practice), and the launch of new products.

Advent plans to double the value of the company over the next four years and then sell to an investor interested in Romania.

Earlier this year Terapia completed its $4 million investment in upgrading its injectable drug section in order to obtain GMP standards. Together with Sicomed, Terapia is the leading injectable drugs manufacturer in Romania. alexandru.cerchez@zf.ro