The National Pharmaceutical Company: big project, small investment budget

• The future national strategic company may only have 7.7 million Euros available for investments

The major government project to develop the state-owned drug industry, the National Pharmaceutical Company, may only have a budget of 7.7 million Euros available for investments this year, (around 31.8 million lei), according to the budgets of the entities that will be included in the new structure.

The Government plans to set up the Pharmaceutical Company by merging the drug maker "Antibiotice Iaşi" with C.N. Unifarm, operating in the drug retail business, and with the Central Storage Office for Special Situation. The new company could also include syringe maker "Sanevit 2003 Arad".

The goal of the project is to make the Romanian drug industry more competitive internationally, and in order to carry out this goal, the company will be declared strategic, and will receive considerable aid from the state.

BURSA recently write that, from a technical point of view, the merger of the aforementioned institutions would not hinder the creation of the national Pharmaceutical Company (ed. note: it can be setup either by having Antibiotice absorb the two other companies, or through the creation of a new company), as the only difficulties could arise with the minority shareholders of Antibiotice Iaşi on their rights to withdraw from the company.

• Company profile

Even though right now, the project of the National Pharmaceutical Company is in an incipient stage, we can run the numbers to determine the profile of the company. (ed. note: by reviewing the budgets for the year 2010 of the companies which would be included in the new structure).

The National Pharmaceutical Company would therefore obtain 63.7 million Euros in total revenues (around 261.4 million lei) and would have total expenses of 59.4 million Euros (around 243.7 million lei).

The company could make 49.7 million Euros (204 million lei) from the sales of syringes and drugs, which could make it a major player on the international market.

The company is expected to have 1480 employees, and its employee expenses could reach 16.2 million Euros (around 66.7 million lei).

The National Pharmaceutical Company would inherit outstanding receivables of 7.3 million Euros (around 30.1 million lei) and outstanding debts of 3.4 million Euros (around 14.1 million lei). However, there is a possibility that the government would improve the budget of the new company after its incorporation.