“If we’re talking about networks with more than 100 pharmacies, there aren’t more than ten of them, but if we’re talking about those with at least five pharmacies, then there are very many of them. The consolidation of the market became visible in the last few years,” Popescu said.
He said Galati and Braila Counties were such examples.
In Braila and Galati Counties, the Unica network, which rebranded from Flavipet, operated 20 pharmacies in the summer and expanded by three pharmacies in June 2012 – June 2013. The company posted revenues of 30 million lei (EUR6.7 million) in 2012.
An Internet search for regional pharmacy networks turns up the Ecofarmacia brand, whose corporate website says it operates pharmacies in Alba, Brasov, Sibiu, Mures, Reghin, Cluj, Tarnaveni, Ungheni and Gheorgheni and that Ecofarmacia has a small to medium-sized regional network.
Pharmaceutical retail is capped by the law in Romania’s big cities. For instance, Bucharest may not have more than one pharmacy per every 3,000 people. Under the circumstances, expansion is only possible by buying already existing licenses. On the other hand, there is no such capping in place rural areas.
Robert Popescu, who is also chief executive officer of A&D Pharma, the largest group in the local pharmaceutical industry, says there are two cost components to the opening of a pharmacy: the license and the investment in the store itself.
ADRFR includes Mediplus and Sensiblu (A&D Pharma group), Farmexpert (Alliance Healthcare), Dona (Eugen Banciu – majority shareholder), Farmexim and Help Net (majority shareholder Ovidiu Buluc), which posted EUR1.8 billion revenue in 2012
There are about 7,000 pharmacies in Romania, according to the National Statistics Institute.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)