Triple Sicomed profits

Drugmaker Sicomed Bucharest has made waves on the Bucharest Stock Exchange on Wednesday, when it announced its Q1 financial results. The company’s shares gained 12.2%, coming close to the maximum allowed for a single day, as the investors were quick to react to the news of Sicomed’s profit being three times higher in dollars ($1.88 million compared to the $540,000 in Q1 last year). Quotations reached 2,300 ROL on Wednesday due to several transactions worth about one billion ROL, several times higher than Sicomed’s average. The market capitalisation of the company therefore reached $28.5 million. First quarter sales went up 39.04% in nominal terms, amounting to 389.64bn ROL from the 279.49bn ROL in the same time in 2002 and outrunning the 17.1% inflation in this period.  Klaas Postema, Sicomed’s general manager, however, confesses the triple profits and the surge in sales have been of little help to the company, which is facing the biggest problem of the entire Romanian drug market: the lack of cash. ZF