Roche makes more than 100m euros from three drugs

Neorecormon (renal insufficiency), Pagasys (hepatitis) and Avastin (cancer), the best-selling drugs in Romania, belonging to Switzerland’s Roche company, last year cumulated sales of around 108m euros, that is around 5.2% of the pharmaceutical market, according to the data provided by IMS Health company.

These drugs are included in national programmes, with their cost being entirely covered by the Health Insurance House.

Roche was the leader of the pharmaceutical market in 2009, a position it lost after Zentiva’s takeover by Sanofi-Aventis.

Roche’s portfolio includes only prescription drugs, which are used in anaemia, cardiovascular diseases, central nervous system diseases, cancer, transplants, virology. The company also produces Tamiflu antiviral drug used in flu treatment.

A strong concentration can be noticed on the pharmaceutical market in the case of the first 20 products.

“Over 20% of the market is concentrated around the top 20 brands, which saw, as a group, an increase of more than 22% in 2009 against 2008,” said Corina Ciolan, general manager of IMS Health Romania.

Tetraxim vaccine (treating poliomyelitis) of Sanofi-Aventis’ portfolio last year boasted the fastest growth pace among the 20 top-selling drugs domestically, advancing by 300% from 2008 to around 14m euros, according to IMS Health data.

Tetraxim ranks last among the top 20 drugs, which last year generated overall sales worth above 400m euros, in the context where the total market amounted to over 2bn euros, according to IMS Health.

On the OTC drug segment, the product boasting the biggest sales is Nurofen, which, according to IMS Health data last year generated sales of 25.1m euros, flat from 2008.

According to IMS Health, the overall pharmaceutical market in 2009 rose by 18.5% in RON to over 2bn euros and by 3.1% in euros. “The decline on the hospital segment deepened,” said IMS Health Romania general manager.