Both Terapia and Europharm, which are held by international giants, increased their business last year but results among the top twenty pharmaceutical producers vary.

Some companies posted decline in revenue, others posted losses, reveals an analysis of the BUSINESS Magazin weekly based on the data on the Finance Ministry’s website. The common denominator here is that producers operated in a market that was not supportive for their business, where getting paid may take almost one year and pressure on cash is huge. Moreover, sales of prescription drugs became subject to a clawback tax (charged only in the pharmaceutical industry for the sales of the drug producers) towards the end of the year. The twenty largest drug producers posted more than EUR600 million in revenue, which shows both domestic sales and exports. Importers continue to have a significant say in the drug industry, as their portfolio includes primarily drugs for serious conditions such as HIV/AIDS, cancer, or neurological problems. Only 12 plants in Romania posted more than EUR10 million in revenue. Consultants in the industry believe that producers should be divided into three categories when analyzed: major producers with facilities in Romania such as Novartis (which owns Sandoz), Sanofi (Zentiva) and Watson (Actavis), regional players operating in Romania like Gedeon Richter and small independent companies. The top ten companies are generally held by international giants and the government owns only one company in this industry via the Health Ministry, Antibiotice. The companies held by local entrepreneurs can be found in the second half of the ranking. Dragos Dinu, partner with consultant Link Resource, says that the advantage of the major producers backed by powerful companies is the optimization of the raw material purchasing costs. “Production costs in Romania, even though having increased quite a lot in the last few years, still retain their competitive edge on other markets in Central and Eastern Europe. Another great competitive edge of these players is that the portfolio development speed is completely different than the speed of the small players, which cannot take advantage of the patent expiry of the R&D producers in real time,” Dinu said. The second category of regional companies with Romanian operations includes Gedeon Richter, which has expanded its business to retail and distribution and is trying to add non-prescription drugs to its portfolio, whose price is not regulated by the government. The third category, of small and medium-sized independent producers, is the most vulnerable of all and Dragos Dinu says they have and continue to feel the problems and pressure on the market more acutely. (English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu) Largest local drug makers
2011 revenue (millions of euros) 2011 profit (millions of euros) 2011 number of employees 2010 revenue (millions of euros) 2010 profit (millions of euros) 2010 number of employees
1 Terapia Ranbaxy 99.4 22.6 667 89.4 17.8 677
2 Europharm 96.2 6.1 258 90.4 0.3 244
3 Actavis* 77.9 -3.81 170 98.4 -1.95 171
4 Antibiotice 66.5 4.8 1,450 57.9 3.0 1,441
5 Sandoz 64.3 – 3.70 205 69.0 5.0 206
6 Zentiva 55.6 8.0 555 61.7 13.6 585
7 Labormed N/A N/A N/A 30.8 – 9.37 291
8 Infomed Fluids 28.7 3.4 391 23.1 4.2 323
9 Gedeon Richter Romania 28.2 – 28.18 552 26.4 -32.79 553
10 Biofarm 22.0 3.4 362 19.5 3.4 343
11 Rompharm Company 19.9 1.0 231 17.5 1.8 138
12 Biotehnos 16.1 8.5 144 14.3 6.7 140
13 Fiterman Pharma 9.6 1.9 120 7.0 1.4 91
14 Arena 7.2 0.9 99 9.4 2.4 91
15 Magistra 5.5 0.8 121 4.1 0.3 110
16 Laropharm 3.6 0.0 150 3.5 0.01 140
17 Vim Spectrum 3.3 0.3 76 3.2 0.2 77
18 Helcor 2.2 0.3 49 2.0 0.02 59
19 SlaviaPharma 2.0 0.1 N/A 2.1 – 0.01 52
20 Sintofarm 1.5 0.2 45 1.2 0.1 49
Source: Business Magazin calculations based on the existing information on the Finance Ministry’s website *The business of Actavis SRL includes production of Sindan Pharma and distribution and sale of drugs imported by Actavis
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