INTERVIEW – Roche’s Management Centre Romania sales fcast to rise by up to 4.0% in 2012

The unit that Zamonea heads, Management Centre Romania, covers Roche’s operations in Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Moldova, Albania, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Bulgaria is expected to be one of the SEE countries which will register a constant and significant growth for Roche over the near term, considering the attention the local authorities are paying to health care and the overall potential of the market, Zamonea told SeeNews in an emailed interview.

“Romania will post steady growth in the period ahead while a number of other smaller Roche affiliates in the region, such as Montenegro or Kosovo, should also show good sales performance.”

The Swiss-based pharmaceuticals company launched, on average, three to four new products per SEE market this year and has similar plans for 2013, depending on the reimbursement policy of the respective country.

“We would have to consider the different reimbursement situations in all these countries. Some drugs are eligible for reimbursement, so we are ready to launch them in certain countries while in others the reimbursement decision is still pending. In Bulgaria for instance, drugs are getting reimbursed on a constant pace, compared with some other countries where new drugs are waiting longer periods before reimbursement is granted,” the official said.

Zamonea views the drive towards the replacement of brand-name with generic drugs on government reimbursement lists as a normal and natural process within the pharmaceutical industry which is seeing the expiration of the patent protection of an increasing number of older brand-name drugs.

“While those drugs are being replaced by generics, reimbursement is granted for other new innovative drugs and this is a constant process. Roche will continue to invest heavily in the research and development of new innovative drugs which will continue to save lives or transform now deadly diseases into chronic conditions.”

Looking ahead, Roche expects its sales growth across the region to continue to be driven by oncology, virology, anti-rheumatoid arthritis and anti-anemia products. Over the medium term, the company plans to offer on the SEE markets products in new therapeutic areas such as treatment of disorders of the central nervous system.

On the backdrop of the dampening effect that crisis-induced government austerity measures across SEE is having on spending by both public institutions and households, Roche expects the future pace of demand to be kept up by the increase in life expectancy in the region.

“If public budgets may decrease, we will see an increase in private spending on healthcare, which puts a lot of pressure on patients and physicians as well. However, most of the countries are trying to find solutions to maintain or to increase their standards for patient care,” Zamonea said.

The average share that Management Center Romania has on the markets it oversees is about 7.5% with Roche being among the top three drug makers in all of them. In Romania, Roche is the leader on the overall pharmaceuticals market in terms of value. Roche Bulgaria holds the top spot on the prescription drug segment and second position on the overall market.

($=0.7809 euro)