Ruxandra Nastase, the new general manager of the domestic branch of Ozone Laboratories pharmaceutical company, says her first decision was related to the start of an internal assessment process.
"As I had just joined the company, the first thing I did was to begin an internal assessment process to see whether the internal structure of the company needed to be adjusted to the changes of the Romanian pharmaceutical market or not," stated Ruxandra Nastase. She said she also considered the creation of a new management position at Ozone Laboratories, for which a selection process is now underway.
"At this moment, given market changes and EU integration, our main target is to boost the efficiency of our product portfolio. The first step in this direction will be the creation of a new position in the company's management structure by grouping some already existent functions. I am speaking about the Senior Regulatory & Quality Manager position and we are recruiting for this position at this moment," added Nastase. Last month, the company entered into a strategic partnership with Bristol-Myers Squibb for the management of its products included in the portfolio in Poland, Bulgaria and Slovakia, an operation mainly referring to marketing and sales. This also led to a modification of the local budget, a process to end late this year, when the company is also due to announce its financial targets for 2007.
Ruxandra Nastase says a turnover increase will be certainly included in the budget, with the increase to be mainly generated by "product portfolio reorganisation and efficiency boosting", as well as by "the introduction of some new molecules".
"While we want to further expand our portfolio, we'd also like to increase our focus on the introduction of some new, more modern molecules on the market," she explained. In Romania, Ozone works up with several local producers to manufacture drugs and plans to expand these partnerships "both locally and regionally/internationally".
"Next year, we'll mainly invest in finding new partners and introducing new generic drugs. At the same time, given the current configuration of the Romanian market, we will extensively invest in people, in their development and training inside the company," Ruxandra Nastase added. The company also wants to become a top ten player in the pharmaceutical industry after ranking 14th after the second quarter of this year, according to Cegedim data.
"In the first 9 months of this year, we continued to grow and we registered a 14.9% increase from the same period of last year," said Nastase.
Ozone has recently contracted a 5 million dollar loan from Citibank Romania and will use the money to boost the number of products and for other investments in development.
Ozone Laboratories
Entered the Romanian pharmaceutical market in August 2001
In 2005 generated turnover worth above 22.2m euros domestically, almost double the figure posted in the previous year
Targets sales worth 50m euros for this year
In the first 9 months added 13 new drugs on the RX segment and 40 on the OTC and food supplements segments
Contracted a $5m loan from Citibank Romania to boost the number of products and further develop the company
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