Last autumn”s acquisition of Sicomed has allowed Zentiva pharmaceutical company to speed up its development pace on the domestic market.
“Without this acquisition, we would”ve had to build a position on a market starting from scratch, which would have taken us several years,” stated Jiri Emmer, Strategy Commerce Director with Zentiva.
Prior to buying Sicomed, Zentiva had an insignificant position on the Romanian market, holding a market share of just 1.2%, according to its own data.
Zentiva paid 102 million dollars (around 85 million euros) to Venoma Holdings Limited, the majority shareholder of the Romanian drug maker.
Thus far, Zentiva has come to own 75% in Sicomed. No public offering will be organised for the rest of stock because there are not enough shares on the market. The process whereby Sicomed is being integrated within the company is due for completion next month, according to the company”s expectations.
Following the acquisition of Sicomed, the Romanian market ranked third in terms of the value of sales within the group, with 417 million euros in 2005. After the first quarter of the year, the Romanian market climbed onto the second position in terms of sales value.
However, in terms of the number of sold pills, Romania ranks first, mainly owing to the low prices. The average price of Zentiva per pharmaceutical unit (pill) last year stood at 1.76 RON, up from 1.5 RON in 2004, but below the average price in the industry, of 8.13 RON, reveals a survey by Cegedim, quoted by the company.
Zentiva”s plans for Romania include adding another 20 products to the portfolio by 2010, in the main therapeutic areas.
“Sicomed”s portfolio is typical for a drug maker and we are planning to modernise it. We do not believe we can introduce all the products we”d want to, but we can certainly bring some improvement,” said Emmer.
Referring to Sicomed”s products, the company”s representatives explained that some of these might gradually be withdrawn from the market over the next three years as they are very old and demand might disappear.
This could also happen because of the new European Union regulations, which are going to include new standards for drugs.
“Regulation problems could be one of the reasons why we might decide to withdraw a product from the market, but this doesn”t have to be the rule,” explained Emmer.
“The Romanian pharmacy market is in full swing and this is why we are planning to strengthen our position on this segment. Our focus in on pharmacies,” stated Mariana Wencz, country manager with Zentiva. For the moment, the company is ruling out the possible acquisition of another Romanian player. ioana.david@zf.ro