Roche: pharmaceutical market slows down

Swiss pharmaceutical group Roche, the fifth largest drug maker in the world, logged sales worth 110.3m RON (30m euros) on the Romanian market in the first three months of this year, up 25.7% compared with 2007.
“We very much depended on the progress of the national oncology programme, and from this point of view our sales advanced as late as toward yearend, a trend that continued in the first quarter (…),” said Dan Zamonea, general manager of Roche Romania.
Roche’s oncology portfolio includes 8 products domestically (and is the drug company’s main focus), which generated around 40% of overall revenues last year.
Roche, which has operated in Romania for more than 10 years, became a legal entity in 2005, which means: “We have to generate a profit because we pay domestic taxes, and also import and take on foreign exchange risks”.
“Our distributors were happy because Roche sells to them in RON. We have our own warehouse and in case we want to work with private hospitals we can deliver directly from this warehouse,” said Zamonea.
Domestically, Roche has a partnership with Terapia Ranbaxy. The partnership with former Sindan ceased for “technical reasons”, but continues on the distribution side. At present, Roche has 150 employees in Romania.
“Globally, we rank fifth, but remain very close to the 4th position, whilst in Romania we rank second. We do not target the top position globally or domestically, but we want to lead in the top therapeutic areas,” added Dan Zamonea.
In the first three months of this year, the pharmaceutical market rose by 12.3% against the similar period last year, according to the data quoted by Roche representatives. Starting the second half of last year, the domestic market slowed down, mainly due to expected legislative changes.
“Starting 2005, the market has followed an upward trend each year, unlike in the previous period when there were fluctuations. Now, the market will rise, but we don’t know by how much. At any rate, against last year, a slowdown has been felt right from the first quarter,” said Roche Romania manager.
Globally, Roche’s sales dropped by around 4% due to the falling sales of Tamiflu. Tamiflu sales not taken into account, Roche posted an 11% increase along the pharmaceutical unit, two times higher than the global market.