GSK Romania grows 20% in nine months

British pharmaceutical group GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) Romania, leader of the local market, logged $76m turnover in the first nine months of 2002, up 20.6% as compared to the year-ago period. The company is likely to exceed the $100m target for this year, which will help it consolidate its market position.
“We have enhanced our sales, marketing and customer service this year. Also, we have successfully launched new products: respiratory – Seretide, diabetes – Avandia, infectivology – Agenerase and Trizivir,” Roberto Musneci,
general manager GlaxoSmithKline Romania and president of Europharm Group told Ziarul Financiar. GSK holds 65% of Europharm, a distribution and production company it acquired in 1998.
The $76m sales account for the total results posted by the GSK office, the Brasov-based plant and the distribution arm.
According to Musneci, the positive turnover trend was due both to the products in the GSK international portfolio and to the generic drugs made in Brasov.
“Comparing with last year’s first nine months, when the antibiotics and HIV treatment medicines were predominant in our top sales products, this year we see the vitamins (especially Eurovita) entering the top best sales of the GlaxoSmithKline products in Romania,” Musneci said.
According to market research company Cegedim Romania, which used data provided by GSK, medicine consumption has posted a 12% increase in the first nine months of the year. Should this pace keep up, the Romanian drug market may grow to 600 million dollars. GSK accounts for 11.5% of the market.
“Few of the therapeutic areas that have grown in sales during these first nine months are systemic antibiotics, drugs used in diabetes, cytostatics etc. GlaxoSmithKline is poised to capitalise on this market increase and so we have, recording significant growth in the following therapeutic areas in the prescription market over the first nine months of this year: diabetes, CNS, depression, infectivology, respiratory, cancer and so on. Also we have recorded significant growth in the OTC market, in therapeutic areas such as vitamins and products for kids,” the GSK manager says.