The Ferrer pharmaceutical group has returned to growth and profitability after the strategic shift imposed by its new CEO, Mario Rovirosa, five years ago, which included disinvestment in non-strategic businesses, direct sales abroad and the focus on developing medicines. for hospital use with its own I D.
“We are growing again in sales and profitability, but, above all, we have created the foundations to have a solid, profitable and sustainable company in the future, with a portfolio of seven drugs under development, some in phase 3 and which we hope will start to reach the market in 2025,” says Rovirosa.
The company, owned by Sergi Ferrer-Salat (96%) and his sister Beatriz, has in recent years sold its subsidiaries of generics (Tarbis), chemical products (HTBA), supplements (Trommsdorff), vaccines (Diater) and Prasfarma . “We chose to exit the least profitable businesses, and that allowed us to reduce debt (from 320 to 100 million euros now). And specialization has allowed us to maintain global sales and be more profitable.”
Thus, explains Rovirosa, the group had a turnover of 645 million in 2022, practically the same as in 2018 despite the smaller number of businesses in which it operates, but the profit has gone from 12 to 28 million euros, with an operating profit or ebitda of 66 million.
Ferrer obtains 47% of its income abroad: it sells its products in 128 countries and has direct subsidiaries in thirteen, including the United States, Mexico, Chile, Austria, Portugal and Germany. “We have already created subsidiaries in Italy, France and the United Kingdom, although we will strengthen them as our new drugs reach the market,” he explains. The group has a staff of 1,800 people.
Ferrer is the head of a business group that includes Interquim, a company that manufactures active ingredients in Sant Cugat del Vallès that employs 178 people. “Half of the production is used by ourselves, and the rest is the basis of a business unit that includes the development of these principles for other companies, as well as the manufacturing and sometimes the final marketing of the medicines,” he adds.
The group also includes Ferrer Alimentación (Fasa) and Medir, two companies dedicated to the marketing of raw materials for food and industry that have a turnover of 118 million euros, in which half of the capital is in the hands of another branch of the family. Ferrer. Fasa, founded in 1910, was in fact the origin of the group, notes Rovirosa.
Ferrer has factories in Sant Cugat (active ingredients and another that produces medicines), in Esplugues de Llobregat (dermocosmetics), in Mexico and in the United States, where its subsidiary Alexza has a complex that also includes offices and an R&D center. in Fremont (California). The group also has a logistics center in Sant Feliu de Buixalleu (Girona).
The group, Rovirosa explained, invested 58 million euros last year in the improvement and expansion of its factories: 20 million in Esplugues, which with its new equipment to produce creams and liquids allows the Sant Cugat plant to specialize in the production of tablets. , and the rest in the United States.
Alexza is precisely the engine of the group’s future growth: with 40 employees, this company has developed a technology, called Staccato, that allows active ingredients to be administered through inhalation that would otherwise have to be injected. “With a small device that the patient can carry in his pocket, a drug can be administered that prevents an epileptic attack or a specific blockage in patients with Parkinson’s, while now they have to go to a health center to receive an injection,” he points out. .
Thus, the company, which is the manufacturer of historical self-care brands such as Gelocatil, OTC or Repavar, invested 41.2 million euros in R&D last year to launch innovative medicines. “We are investing more because we have 75% of our projects in clinical phases, the most expensive,” he says. And our purpose is to continue increasing this effort, until it reaches 10% of sales”, focused on the two therapeutic areas in which it has specialized: vascular and interstitial lung diseases and neurological disorders.
The United States has become the driving force of the group due to the difficulties that Europe poses for the pharmaceutical industry, the manager laments. “China, but especially the United States, are taking us ahead. The latest EU proposal, which reduces the duration of patents, will be a new handicap,” says Rovirosa, who defends that “there must be a balance between the need for cheap medicines, because the states pay for them through the system public health, and the need for European companies to be able to make their investments profitable.”
In his opinion, Europe has “good technological centers and good scientists”, but there is a lack of a legal environment to promote innovation “and the will, desire to take risks” for it to develop. As an example, he points out the freezing of the price of medicines, despite the fact that manufacturing costs have skyrocketed. “The idea of ??promoting local production to avoid shortages, which was imposed with the pandemic, has already been put aside,” he laments.
