Antibiotice Iasi expects a 10 percent increase in its export in 2014

Antibiotice Iasi expands its export business this year when will start delivering new products in Russia and France, part of the development plan focused on consolidating the export component. Besides, the medicine producer, owned by the Romanian Ministry of Health will approach new markets, such as the former Yugoslavia and Central Asia regions, thus estimating a considerable increase, over 10 percent, in its exports in 2014, as per the report the company released this morning.

‘In 2014 we will start delivering two cardiovascular products to Russia. This year also, we will begin delivering on the French market an anti-infective product in two doses, based on a partnership with a major European company. We established commercial contracts for export development this year, too, in the former Yugoslavia area and in Central Asia markets – Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.’ Ioan Nani, Antibiotice’s CEO, said.

Romania’s medicine exports do not exceed 150 – 200 million dollar annually, Antiobiotice being a major player among the other exporters in the country. Last year was pretty impressive in terms of exports volume, which amounted to nearly 27 million dollar – an advance of 34 percentage points over 2012 – representing about one third of its total turnover. According to Nani, the development plan they will implement indicates that the turnover generated by exports will double within 2016 and 2020.

The progress the company has seen over the past year was due to a significant development of finished dosage forms export, corroborated by Nystatin export, segment where Antibiotice became world’s leader. Additionally, the medicine producer entered new markets in the Middle East region, namely Libya and Iraq, as well as established new projects in the Western and Central Eastern Europe.

The focus on strengthening the export component of its business is further explained by Nani who outlines that by exporting their products, they have higher profitability compared with the domestic deliveries, it takes much less to collect the amount due for their products and there is no clawback tax applied. Despite having very strict regulation related to medicine production, markets such as the U.S. can generate profit rates of up to 40 percent.

Antibiotice is a traditional exporter, starting its international deliveries in the ’80 when half of its production was destined to be sold abroad. As for the domestic market, the Iasi-based company is the eleventh among the major drugs producers, having a market share of 2.5 percent, according to the data released by Cegedim (a leading market researcher for the pharmaceutical industry) relative to October 2012 – September 2013 period.