Romanian medical services operators plan to expand internationally

Medical services operators in Romania have been talking about the possibility of expanding their businesses to neighboring countries. As the Ziarul Financiar publication notes, Mihai Marcu, the president of the Administration Council at Medlife is planning a transaction in this regard quite soon.

 

“We want to consolidate the market. We are talking to banks about serious transactions and we need a partner which can understand this fact” he reportedly said during the ZF Pharma Summit 2015.

Medlife purportedly has six or seven such transactions in view this year. The firm hopes to make at least half of them a reality. This optimism is not shared, however, by owners of pharmacy chains, distributors or even producers.

Pharmacy chain owners believe that the price reduction in medication will have an obvious negative impact on the industry but also on the patients themselves.

Mihai Miron, the general director of Ropharma emphasized the fact that there has been a deficiency in supplying pharmacies and hospitals during the past months and that bankruptcy awaits many of Romania's pharmacies.

Meanwhile, medical services operators, like Fady Chreih, general director of the Regina Maria private health care chain, predict a 7%-8% growth for the next five years. He also underlines the importance of the private hospital system and its potential to cover up the failure of the state system, which has not been investing in this domain for quite some time.

While this may be true, and the private health care system in Romania is a preferable option to the one provided by the state, many Romanians cannot afford this type of care.

Time will have to tell whether or not one should be optimistic about these predictions.