Roche expects “relatively low” growth of 5% this year

Hoffman La Roche pharmaceutical giant, the second biggest player on the Romanian drug market, for this year has budgeted a "relatively low" increase of 5%, compared with the level of around 700m RON (167m euros) reached in 2009. "We're looking around us and we can see things are completely different this year. (...) We chose the most downbeat scenario in our budget so that we may not have anything to complain about afterward," said Dan Zamonea, general manager of Roche Romania in an interview with ZF. He said in 2009 his company went beyond projected growth of 10%, with the overall increase reaching 30%. Roche's advance was supported by the oncologic segment, which generated around 40% of overall sales. Roche Romania budgeted 3-4% profit margin for this year, from 5-6% last year. Roche fell onto the second position in the ranking of the biggest players on the pharmaceutical market after a year when it held the leading position. "We don't expect things to get better in 2010. We hope they won't get worse," Zamonea said.