A comeback to the pharmaceutical industry and a business with infant milk powder. These are the main investment projects envisaged by Mihai Miron, founder of drugmaker Europharm Brasov, who has recently sold his stake in the company.
Miron sold his 30% stake to British group GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) last week, under a transaction estimated at $10-15 million. GSK already held 65% of the shares, bought in 1998 from Mihai Miron and his business associates.#leadend#
"I will invest 2-3 million dollars in the working capital of the new drugmaker where I am the majority shareholder - Ropharma Iasi. I am also looking at several growth options for the infant milk powder business I started last year," Miron told Ziarul Financiar.
Ropharma, due to start production this year, is a plant making injectable drugs and was established by Miron after Farmaco Kishinev, the company he held together with his business partner, was nationalised.
Miron, together with an American businessman, bought Farmaco Kishinev in 1998, after they relinquished control over Europharm.
The two associates acquired the main stake in Farmaco from the Republic of Moldova, under a $2.5m deal. According to Miron, another $6 million were then invested in the drugmaker, to acquire four new production lines for injectable drugs.
"These investments had enabled us to increase the company's turnover from $7-8 million in 1998 to $12 million in 1999. However, the plant was transferred again to the Government's property (after the Communists seized power, i.e.) and I had to find a use for the four production lines we managed to retrieve," Miron says.
The businessman brought the production lines in Romania, where he set up another producer of injectable drugs, this time in Iasi - Ropharma.
The company will start operating this year and is set to compete against Antibiotice Iasi and then Sicomed Bucharest.
"We will initially make antiinfective drugs, which were also part of the Farmaco portfolio. However, our medium and long-term strategy aims at launching new products, which are not being made in Romania at this point and are imported at very high prices," Miron stated.
The newly-established plant will start with 30 employees, according to Miron, and 5-6 million-euro turnover next year, with only one production line. Sales are set to grow then, in relation with market trends and as the other three production lines are put to work.
The businessman will thus attempt to repeat the success story of Europharm, a company that started out with a pharmacy in 1992, began production in 1995 and had acquired 5% of the market in 1998, becoming one of Romania's largest drugmakers.
Sicomed Bucharest now owns 5.5% of the market, Antibiotice Iasi holds a 3.8% share, Terapia Cluj - 3.9%, while GSK is the market leader with about 11.5% market share.
The Romanian drug market is estimated at some 600 million euros.
Pentru alte știri, analize, articole și informații din business în timp real urmărește Ziarul Financiar pe WhatsApp Channels
