Farmak plans to boost exports to 40% of total sales in coming five years, PJSC Farmak CEO Volodymyr Kostiuk has said, speaking about the company’s entrance the Australian market at the Ukrainian Pharmaceutical Forum in Kyiv. According to him, in 2015, negotiations were held with representatives of an international company with the office in Australia. And in 2017, Farmak shipped the first batch to this country.
“It took us a little time to enter this market [Australia]. After all, our products meet the high requirements that are needed to deliver products to this region… Having a certificate from the Australian regulator facilitates access to other markets. Our goal is to increase exports in the sales structure up to 40% in the next five years,” Kostiuk said, adding that the company’s closest horizons are the EU countries (Germany, the U.K.), the United States, Mexico, and the United Arab Emirates.
According to the company’s press service, the share of sales to the regions of Australia and Oceania in Ukrainian exports of pharmaceutical products is only 0.3%. This is due to the fact that the Australian market is considered well regulated – at the level of the United States, the EU, so few Ukrainian companies can ship their products to Australia.
Farmak is a member of the Association Manufacturers of Medications of Ukraine (AMMU).
PJSC Farmak (Kyiv), among top three leaders of the pharmaceutical sector of Ukraine, in 2018 plans to increase the exports share to 33%.
The company told Interfax-Ukraine that in H1 2018 Farmak’s exports grew by 13% year-over-year, in particular, thanks to supplies to Uzbekistan (a rise by 20%), Belarus (by 124%), Kazakhstan (by 13%) and Kyrgyzstan (by 16%).
Sales of products to Russia remained at the level of 2017.
“We want to increase the export potential of the company by retaining the leading positions in Ukraine. It would lead to an increase in production, creation of new jobs, an increase in the amount of taxes paid. For Farmak, the markets of the European Union and Asia remain a priority,” Farmak Executive Director Volodymyr Kostiuk said.
In general, according to him, in 2017, Farmak exported products for $70 million. In 2017, Poland, Uzbekistan and Russia dominated the structure of foreign sales. In particular, sales to Poland accounted for 28.3% of total exports, Uzbekistan – 20.9% and Russia – 16.7%.
In 2017, the share of Farmak’s sales in foreign markets was 31%.
Farmak is a member of the Association Manufacturers of Medications of Ukraine (AMMU).
PJSC Farmak (Kyiv), among top three leaders of the pharmaceutical sector of Ukraine, plans to invest $10 million in construction of a pharmaceutical plant in Uzbekistan, the company’s press service has reported. “With a view to the export development, Farmak is considering an investment project with investment of $10 million to localize production in the Republic of Uzbekistan with the launch of production in bulk and a gradual transition to full-cycle production, with the development of technologically more complex products, in particular, radiopaque and biotechnological products,” the press service of the company said, citing Chairperson of the supervisory board Filia Zhebrovska.
At present, Farmak is fourth in sales in the pharmaceutical market of Uzbekistan, the portfolio of products sold in this country totals 120 items.
The company said that the head of the Farmak’s supervisory board and Ambassador of Uzbekistan to Ukraine Alisher Abdualiyev have already agreed on the construction of the plant.
“The new production facility of Farmak will expand the range of medicines that are produced in Uzbekistan, reduce dependence on imported production and create a basis for further expansion of the pharmaceutical cluster,” Abdualiyev said.
Farmak is a member of the Association Manufacturers of Medications of Ukraine (AMMU).
PJSC Farmak (Kyiv), one of the three leaders of the Ukrainian pharmaceutical industry, in the first half of 2018 increased pharmacy sales by 17.4%, to UAH 2.232 billion. According to a press release of the pharmaceutical company, with reference to a study by Proxima Research, thus, Farmak for the eighth consecutive year has been leading the rating of marketing organizations in the pharmaceutical market of the country in January-June 2018.
As reported, Farmak in January-March 2018 increased sales of medicines by 18.35% compared to the same period in 2017, to UAH 1.1 billion.
In 2017 Farmak raised sales in the retail pharmaceutical market of the country by 21% in monetary terms. Its net profit increased by 29.9%, to UAH 839.09 million.
Over the past seven years, the company has allocated UAH 2.8 billion for the development and modernization of production.
PJSC Farmak exports its products to 20 countries. The company’s portfolio includes 220 product dossiers. Annually, it brings to the market up to 20 new medicines.
Public joint-stock company Farmak, the pharmaceutical company of Ukraine of the top three largest companies in the country, is mulling the possibility of acquiring a pharmaceutical company in Europe, acting CEO Volodymyr Kostiuk has said. “Now we are looking for a company which could be bought,” he told reporters.
Kostiuk said that this is the acquisition of an industrial company or a company with a product portfolio in Europe.
“Poland was the first step. Now we are looking at Hungary and Croatia. There is a concrete targeted profile. We are trying to meet it and select companies-candidates,” he said.
Kostiuk said that Farmak does not set the terms for acquiring the company and behaves thoughtfully regarding the cost of the asset.
“We are not in a hurry. We want to find the company that meets our plans as fully as possible,” he said.
In turn, Farmak Technical Director Andriy Hoi did not rule out that production of cancer treating medicines will be organized at the facilities of Farmak.
“These are very expensive medicines. They have a high production cost. These are highly active medications. Having several cancer treating medicines in our portfolio, including from post-Soviet solutions, we are working with leading Western companies regarding the localization of production of these medicines. We are thinking on starting a separate production line in the medium term outlook and a separate line of highly active medications,” he said.
Pharmaceutical companies at the global level will increase investment in innovation and support for a high level of quality of medicines, international expert in GMP Wolfgang Schumacher has said. “In the early 1990s there was rather a broad understanding of what quality is. Over the years, this understanding has become more formulated and detailed, supported by more stringent rules and regulatory government policies,” he told Interfax-Ukraine as part of a master class “Integrity of Data for Laboratories and Production” for employees of Farmak Pharmaceutical Company (Kyiv) involved in the pharmaceutical quality system.
According to the expert, now, due to the presence of an increasing number of regulatory requirements, the concept of “quality of medicines” is also becoming increasingly regulated. “Back in the 1990s, we could produce a quality product without having a large number of regulatory requirements, but in recent years the requirements have become more detailed. New regulatory documents are issued. New regulatory documents are about ten times larger than the previous ones,” he said.
At the same time, Schumacher stressed that increasing the number of regulatory requirements obliges pharmaceutical companies that comply with GMP standards to strengthen the training of new personnel in GMP, including those related to legislative requirements that are not specified in the documents. According to him, European pharmaceutical companies pay more attention to quality than, in particular, American companies, despite the fact that the U.S. market has more regulatory requirements.
“European pharmaceutical companies are most focused on quality products. The American market is more documented, with lower quality in its products. In the U.S. market the documentation and the process of documenting are better than in Europe, but in practice there is not everything as good as in Europe,” he said.
At the same time, the expert noted Farmak’s responsible approach to the issues of quality and innovation. “It is very noticeable that the Farmak team is dedicated to its work and very motivated, which is very good. The life of each company lies in its team,” the expert said. The expert also noted that small and medium-sized pharmaceutical companies are “more pragmatic in their approach to quality, while large companies very often follow the rules.”
According to the expert, priority investments in quality are “investments that help develop people, and “it is necessary to invest in the motivation of the team.” “I think that Ukraine will face the same problems that other countries faced as well. Attracting personnel will be more expensive than buying equipment,” he said. At the same time, the expert noted the high expenses for innovation that pharmaceutical companies have to bear.
