Drugmaker Antibiotice Iasi in April and May recovered the ground it had lost in the first quarter of the year, posting double monthly sales and considerable profit growth, general manager Ioan Nani told Ziarul Financiar.
Nani added Antibiotice sold approximately 100bn ROL’s worth (over $3 million) both in April and May, nearly twice more than in March.
At the same time, profit, which had gone down 14% in dollars in the first three months, considerably rebounded in April. Antibiotice therefore moved on from $1 million net profit for three months to $1.9 million four-month net profit, up from the same time last year.
“Sales increased because of the change in commercial policy. We created a special department for e-auctions, and therefore considerably upped the share of direct sales (no dealers in between i.e.) in the total turnover. We also restructured the marketing department and put people in charge of every therapeutic category. Exports in their turn helped boost sales,” Ioan Nani explained.
Antibiotice’s 2003 targets, as set in the S&R budget, are 1,250bn ROL ($36-$38 million) turnover and net profit of 140bn ROL ($4.2 million), therefore anticipating an about 5% growth in sales and earnings in dollars.
The budget, which was deemed as pessimistic, was built on the idea that the healthcare system would not manage to work out its money troubles this year. Antibiotice’s goal back then was to pay more attention to collecting the debts from hospitals and drugstores than to boosting profit and sales.
What has happened in the meantime, considering Antibiotice had to collect more than 645bn ROL (half of 2003’s sales estimates) three months through the year?
“Part of the debt has already been paid and there’s hope we’ll get the money for all the deliveries made in 2002 in August. In addition, we’ve noticed many of our competitors did not cut sales, although experiencing the same debt-collection problems as we do,” Nani concluded.
Drug sales on the Romanian market totalled 146.8 million euros in the first quarter of 2003, according to the data supplied by market research company Cegedim Romania. Certain signs point out to 2003 being the first year of decline after many years of growth in a row.
Antibiotice’s top competitors are GlaxoSmithKline (market leader – 11.5% share), Novartis, which bought Lek and came to account for 7.1% of the market, Pfizer – 6.1%, Sicomed Bucharest and Terapia Cluj.
Antibiotice is the last major state-owned drug-making factory, i.e. Health Ministry-owned (53.01%) to be precise.
The second most significant shareholder is Societatea de Investitii Financiare (Financial Investment Company – SIF) Oltenia, which holds 9.9% in the company. If it wants to cross the 10% threshold, the SIF is bound by the law to put out a public purchasing offer. Rumours about this offer have been around ever since last year and reached the investors’ attention again lately, so that quotations rose 7.5% last week.
laurentiu.ispir@zf.ro