Home ›› 06 Dec 2021 ›› Stock
Beximco Pharmaceuticals Ltd has been gaining strong sales momentum in the Middle East, South American and African markets.
Despite various challenges, the homegrown drug major aggressively pursued opportunities in the international markets, said the company in a report.
Its domestic sales revenue grew by 15.4 per cent to reach around Tk 2,637 crore while export revenue fetched Tk 312.4 crore registering a 13.5 per cent increase over the last financial year, according to its latest annual report.
Beximco Pharma that accounts for 22 per cent of the total drug export, expanded its overseas destination to eight new markets in the Middle East, Africa and South America, taking the total export destination to 77, said the report.
The eight new countries are Oman, Lebanon, Venezuela, Bolivia, Kosova, Mexico, Congo and Mongolia. During the last financial year, it expanded to four new markets namely, the Maldives, Pakistan, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic.
“Defying the supply chain and logistic challenges, we managed to maintain the growth trajectory of our export,” said its Managing Director Nazmul Hassan in the report.
In the last financial year, the company’s export revenue fetched Tk 3,124 million with over 50 per cent of the total export shipped to highly regulated developed markets.
Beximco Pharmaceuticals makes up 9 per cent of the country’s Tk 27,600 crore drug market.
Beximco Pharma received the approval of the US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) for the antiarrhythmic drug flecainide acetate (50, 100, and 150 mg tablets) and muscle relaxant drug baclofen (10 and 20 mg tablets).
The company reports cash incentives on exports for the period 2020-21 was Tk 31 crore as against Tk 14 crore of 2019-20.
The cash incentive on export recorded a significant increase over the comparable prior period because of lower submission of application in the initial period of the introduction of the incentive scheme in the 2019-20 fiscal year, according to the annual report.
“Global pharma industry remains at the forefront in the fight against the pandemic and Bangladesh is no exception,” it said.
Despite facing all the pandemic challenges, the Bangladesh drug industry maintained double-digit growth. Pharmaceutical export from Bangladesh also grew by 25 per cent to $169 million in the last financial year.
Beximco Pharma holds an 85.22 per cent stake in Nuvista Pharma Limited in 2018. In 2021, it acquired a majority stake (54.6 per cent) in Sanofi Bangladesh Limited (SBL), a subsidiary company of global pharmaceutical giant Sanofi Group.
In the current financial year, Beximco Pharma will focus on the improvement of Sanofi Pharma.
“Acquisition of Sanofi Bangladesh is an important strategic step to reinforce our market position through diversified portfolio and expanded market reach,” said Nazmul Hassan.
“This year, one of our key priorities would be to realign and restructure the business and operating model of SBL and ensure its successful integration to build a strong foundation for a sustainable growth of the business,” he said.
The company will also emphasize Unit-3 and the production capacity of the company will increase significantly once the unit will be in full operation.
In the annual report, Beximco Pharma Chairman ASF Rahman said “To sustain the growth momentum, we made a significant investment in our Unit-3 manufacturing facilities.”
He said the project is almost complete and few of the manufacturing lines are now producing validation batches, while the rest will be operational in phases after validation and product transfer.
“This facility, once fully operational, will significantly increase our production capacity, ease our manufacturing constraints, and secure our future growth.”
During the pandemic, the company became the first company in the world to launch generic versions of the breakthrough antiviral drugs Remdesivir and Molnupiravir for COVID-19 which was originally developed by Gilead Sciences and Merck/Ridgeback Biotherapeutics respectively.
The company earned a net amount of Tk 54.2 crore as Vaccine Distribution Fee under a tripartite agreement with the government and the Serum Institute of India for the supply of AstraZeneca Vaccine in Bangladesh.
Beximco Pharma is listed with Dhaka and Chittagong stock exchanges of Bangladesh and the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) of the London Stock Exchange.
On Sunday, its share dropped slightly on the Dhaka Stock Exchange.
