7% growth in turnover and profit in the first nine months

The pharmaceutical company Antibiotice SA Iasi (symbol: ATB, listed on the first tier of the BSE) closed the first three quarters of 2012 with a net turnover of 215.1 million LEI, higher by 7% year-over-year.

In the context of the reduction of the operating expenses and increase of the income generated by the company’s business affairs, the operating profit at the end of first nine months of 2012 saw a growth of 26% (40.4 million LEI), compared with the same period of the previous year. . Thus, the balance of the first 9 months of 2012 ended with a net profit of 26.7 million LEI, by 7% higher than the net profit achieved in the first three quarters of the year 2011. “The balanced growth in turnover and profit are based on a well outlined business plan supported on six pillars of development that set the milestones of the company’s evolution until 2016. The internationalisation of the business, the strategic adjustment of the product portfolio of products, reduction in the operating costs, but also the development of the professional skills of the human resource are the directions towards which we have focused attention in these last 9 months. Our continuous focus towards cost adjusting and falling within the budget both for sustaining the current activity and the projects aiming at strategic development will be our main concerns in the months to come. This way we seek to move forward safely towards our targets of profit and turnover with regard to permanently maintaining balanced the company’s systems and subsystems”, declared Ioan Nani, Antibiotice CEO.

7 new products in the portfolio

Thus in the first 9 months of 2012 the company’s portfolio was completed with 7 new products belonging to the therapeutical classes in which Antibiotice has chosen to strategically develop in the years to come, id est antiinfectives, cardiovasculars, CNS and oncological products.

Out of the oncological category, Antibiotice lauched in the market 3 products needed for the current therapeutics used by oncologists. We refer to Bicalutamidă Atb® 50 mg, tablets (for cancer prostate), Letrozol Atb® 2,5 mg, tablets (for the adjuvant treatment of early stage breast cancer with hormone receptors in postmenopausal women) and Anastrozol Atb® 1 mg, tablets (for the treatment of advanced stage breast cancer in postmenopausal women).

The drug portofolio has been also enriched with medicines for cardiovascular use, for psychiatric disorders as well as for the antiinfective treatment. We talk about Trimetazidină Atb® 35 mg, tablets (used in patients with angina pectoris, in combination with other therapies), Paroxetină Atb® 20 mg, tablets (for the treatment of major depression and other obsessive-convulsive disorders), the antiinfective product Eficef ® 100 mg, capsules and the product Lactic Atb ® ova, for genitourinary disorders.

22% increase in the foreign markets business

Externally (another strategic development direction), the company’s business materialized after the first 9 months in getting a 46.4 million turnover , up 22% compared to the same period of the previous year. The favourable development of sales was due to higher exports of Nystatin (an active substance for which Antibioticen holds the second place on global level), especially in Asia, South America, Europe and the United States of America.

The finished products from the anti-infectives, cardiovascular and digestive tract classes, required for export, were sold to the values comparable with those in the previous year on traditional or recently addressed markets in Russia and the CIS States, Africa, Europe, the United States of America and Asia. „The presence of the company on the external markets signifies today 100 partnerships in 65 countries worldwide. However, we take into account a diversification of our international business affairs. Today, Antibiotice is capable of offering complete services for the generic medicine industry, starting with the research and development of generics, conduct of bioequivalence studies, RA activities (within its own Research and Development Center) until medicines manufactured on the GMP and FDA authorized manufacturing lines (products for injection, Nystatin) for the interested partners. This new approach, alongside with the recent partnerships for the export of the products for injection on the Algerian market (worth 4 million dollars), the prospects regarding the distribution of Ampicillin and Nafcillin for injection to the 2 new partners on the American market as well as the projects in progress (with a 2-year average implementing term) for export to the markets of the European Union, Canada, Asia and the Middle East provide us sufficient reasons to have high expectations as regards the medium-term results, at the international level”, completed Ioan Nani

Programs to increase the professional skills of the staff and to attract new professionals

The long-term strategic development of the company is inseparable from the increase of human resource skills. Thus, in the period April-August 2012, Antibiotice developed the “Summer School” program designed both for developing the employees’ skills and for attracting new professionals in the company. 460 employees, from top management to execution staff, attended courses for developing the professional skills focused on innovation and creativity, organizational culture and development of the managerial skills. Within the same program, 35 students from the faculties of pharmacy, chemistry and chemical engineering attended trainning and practice sessions in order to further attract young specialists in the fields of research, pharmaceutical development, quality control, quality assurance or production of drugs. “Today, the most important resource of a company is represented by the well trained people, people who have skills and who become from mere employees, collaborators of the firm in which they work. It is important for Antibiotice that fixing the business objectives to be correlated with the potential of its resourcess, whether we speak of technological resources, research and development, or human resources”, completed Ioan Nani

For detailed information, see The Management Report and Balance Sheet of the budgetary exercise ended at 30.09. 2012, on the Bucharest Stock Exchange site (www.bvb.ro) or on the Antibiotice’s website, „Investors” section (www.antibiotice.ro).