Terapia borrows $25m from HVB and Bank Austria

The Cluj-Napoca-based company Terapia will this month take out a 25 million-dollar loan from Bank Austria Creditanstalt AG and HVB Bank Romania, with the funds intended for use in financing company activities.

“We’ve paid back an earlier loan from another banking institution and borrowed money from Bank Austria Creditanstalt AG and HVB Bank Romania because it’s more profitable. The repayment period is five years and the funds will be used to finance our activities and to meet the company’s current needs,” general manager, Stephen Stead, said on Monday.

Stead said that the funds would be targeted at investment projects, the launch of new drugs and the acquisition of raw materials, though he provided no details.

This year Terapia initiated a 10 million-dollar investment programme aimed at environmental protection, involving modernisation of the company’s entire production platform. The environmental programme will be implemented over a three-year period.

Earlier this year Terapia also finalised investments worth around 4 million dollars for the modernisation of the injectable drugs unit so that it can meet GMP standards (Good Manufacturing Practice).

The company also plans to expand its product range to cater for the cardiovascular, central nervous and muscular-skeletal system markets.

The drug maker anticipates growth of about 45% in 2005, while for this year they are predicting sales of 50 million dollars.

In the first nine months of this year, Terapia’s sales totalled around 35 million dollars, which is already higher than last year’s full-year figure of 33 million dollars.

In the first nine months of 2003, Terapia generated a turnover of 23 million dollars.

The main factor that pushed turnover higher was the company’s focus on an active sales policy. However, the increase in the total value of the drugs market, which is likely to reach 950 million dollars this year, also played its part.

According to the market research company Cegedim, in the period July 2003 to June 2004, Terapia controlled 3.5% of the Romanian drugs market, ranking sixth among pharmaceutical companies after GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, Pfizer, Hoffmann La Roche and Sicomed.

The company is owned by Advent International US investment fund, which last year acquired 95% of the company’s stock in a 45 million-dollar transaction.