Sandoz's Goal to Become Leading Generic Producer in CIS
The goal of the general manager of Sandoz in Russia, Metod Dragonja, is to take this generics group from third to first place in terms of sales on markets of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Dragonja's successor at Ljubljana's Lek, which is part of Sandoz, said.
The Swiss pharmaceuticals giant Novartis, which owns Sandoz, planned to send Dragonja, who ran Lek for 15 years, to Russia for quite some time, the chair of the Lek management board told the Thursday edition of the business daily Finance.
While Russia is a big market, Russians do not use many drugs per capita, explained Janja Bratos, who took over from Dragonja in March. This is a reason why Russia is one of the most promising markets not only for Lek, but also for Sandoz as a whole.
The effects of the rising oil price can be noticed in Russia, said Bratos, and added that the country spent much more on drugs in 2005 than last year. "This is a big opportunity for all generics," she said.
Lek sold US$ 183.1m worth of products in the January-to-March period, up 7.4% up from the same period last year.
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