PharmaSwiss to Start Building 20 Mln Euro Drug Factory in Serbia Next Year - Media

The factory is expected to start production in 2012 and increase the company’s annual output in Serbia four- or five-fold, b92 (www.b92.net ) quoted the production development director of PharmaSwiss' Serbian unit, Goran Stojanovic, as saying. The Serbian unit of PharmaSwiss currently produces about nine million drug packages per year.

PharmaSwiss holds about 12% of Serbia’s drug market, b92 quoting the company’s Swiss-based managing board member, Peter Nemec, as saying.

The factory will export to Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, former Yugoslav republics, Greece, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Albania, Israel and Turkey, Stojanovic said. PharmaSwiss is also considering exports to other former Soviet republics, including Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan.

The new factory, which will employ about 200, will produce drugs from the company's current portfolio and new ones, Stojanovic said.

Nemec also said that the Serbian unit of PharmaSwiss will generate a third of the company's projected 2009 turnover in Europe.

($=0.6891 euro)