The company applied for state aid of RON85 million, but the score obtained put it on the 25th place in the list of applications published by the Finance Ministry and the application did not fall within the budget limit for the June-July 2022 session.
“There are almost 200 companies in this scheme and each of them is proposing investment projects, some of them very large. I am surprised that investments that need more capital seem to get more points, and not necessarily those that produce higher future revenues for the state budget,” Ioan Nani, general manager of Antibiotice Iasi, told ZF.
The company is 53% owned by the Romanian government, through the Health Ministry, and is the largest Romanian-held drug manufacturer.
In recent years, Antibiotice has invested in portfolio development, in the export area, and in the fall of 2022 wants to open a new production facility of ointments and topical products, after an investment of EUR25 million.
“We are still waiting for this funding of RON200 million to be finally approved from government funds, given that we are the only fully Romanian-owned producer. The investment is in a factory for sterile injectable products, sterile solutions, and a factory for sterile topical products. These two factories must be complemented by our own national storage and distribution logistics,” Ioan Nani adds.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)