- The company grew by 16% in 2019 to achieve a turnover of two hundred and twenty-eight (228) million euros
- Uriach is now even further positioned as a European benchmark in Consumer Healthcare and has exceeded one hundred and forty-one (141) million euros in turnover in this business area with a growth of 24% on the previous year
- The company has experienced double-digit growth for the seventh year running (with a CAGR for the past 7 years of 15%) and has more than doubled its turnover in this period
- The strategic plan (2018-2022) envisages a turnover of three hundred (300) million euros in 2022 as a result of significant growth in Europe, which is both organic and based on strategic acquisitions
- The company belongs to an essential sector and has continued production and distribution throughout the COVID-19 crisis while adapting its organisation to guarantee its collaborators’ safety
Barcelona, June 17th 2020.- Uriach continues to grow and is now the European benchmark in Consumer Healthcare, it’s fastest-growing business area. Uriach closed the 2019 financial year with a turnover of two hundred and twenty-eight (228) million euros, 16% more than the previous year. Ebitda likewise amounted to forty-six (46) million euros. In recent years the company has more than doubled its overall turnover and has maintained double-digit growth for the seventh year running. The pharmaceutical company adheres to the guidelines established in its strategic plan (2018-2022) and expects to close 2022 with a turnover of three hundred (300) million euros.
Uriach is now in a process of full international expansion and has a direct presence through its own subsidiaries in Spain, Italy and Portugal, while in Greece and Romania it has joint-venture agreements with local companies. It sells its products to over 70 countries.
Significant growth in Europe in Consumer Healthcare
The health self-care business accounts for nearly two-thirds of Uriach’s total turnover, which in 2019 reached one hundred and forty-one (141) million euros, 24% more than in the previous financial year. The Spanish and the Italian markets account for the bulk of the self-care business, despite the relatively faster growth of the markets of Greece, Romania and the rest of the world. These are covered through licence, distribution or other agreements, with different market approach models, which include sales on the e-commerce channel in China with a company store on Tmall.
Uriach’s strategy is to have a direct presence in key countries in Europe, a continent where it mainly focuses on Consumer Healthcare. It therefore continues its commitment both to organic growth, based on constant launches of innovative products, and to inorganic growth through strategic acquisitions, with a view to entering new countries (France, Germany and Poland, among other countries, remain strategic priorities for future acquisitions).
Outside Europe, Uriach adopts a strategy of different types of agreements with local companies and therefore approaches each market in the way that best suits the existing reality and circumstances. This it started doing just a few years ago for the Consumer Healthcare business, partly to make the most of the broad network of international contacts that Uriach had established in previous decades with its other businesses. This has begun to pay off and yield a swift growth in turnover.
Innovation as a core area for the launch of pioneering products
The company has based the development of Consumer Healthcare on innovation, both in processes and in end-consumer products. This has enabled Uriach to expand its portfolio with the launch of innovative and pioneering products on the market. Data from this area show the strong organic growth of brands that include Aquilea®, Fisiocrem® (which has recorded a growth of over 20% this year), Aero-Red®, Biodramina®, Fuca® and EnRelax®.
The Aquilea brand is the leader in the Food Supplements sector and includes products such as Aquilea Sueño and Aquilea Colesterol, which was launched in 2019 and is the only product that reduces cholesterol by acting on its three main causes. Together with Fisiocrem, they have now become established as international brands, with a presence in different countries, mainly in Europe. Another significant innovation in 2019 was the launch of Halibut Cuidatopic, its first full complete range of cortisone-free atopic skin care products.
One of the major innovations of 2019 was the launch of Cannabix® CBD, a topical cream the main ingredient of which is Cannabidiol (CBD), a phytocannabinoid extracted from the cannabis plant. Cannabix has been on the market for just over a year and has already surpassed all sales forecasts, with a turnover of over a million euros and an envisaged growth in 2020 of 40%. The company very shortly expects to expand this line with new products. It has also been chosen as 2020 product of the year on account of its innovative nature. According to Oriol Segarra, Uriach CEO:
“Innovating and pioneering are part of our DNA. It explains why we are Spain’s oldest pharmaceutical company and one of Europe’s longest-lasting, and why we are still growing every year”.
Rupatadina is still expanding in new countries
B2B (Business to Business), the company’s other major business area ended 2019 with a turnover of eighty-seven (87) million euros, which is a growth of 6% on the previous year. This area focuses on the marketing of molecules from the company’s own research, active ingredients and generic products developed by Uriach R&D through licence and distribution agreements. Its main focus of growth is the success of the antihistamine Rupatadina.
The growth of this division is based on Rupatadina’s entry into new countries. It is already present in over 60 countries and while in recent years the major innovations have included its arrival in Japan, Canada and Korea, future plans now involve the arrival of this product in the United States and China which, being among the world’s largest markets, represent huge opportunities to carry on developing this in-house researched molecule.
Uriach designs its Sustainability Plan to 2022
As part of its 2018-2022 Strategic Plan, Uriach set the Sustainability Plan in motion in order to encourage sustainability to pervade the entire organisation and instil in everyone a wish to contribute actively to a better world. The Plan was drawn up after a period of dialogue with the company’s interest groups. These helped to produce it on the basis of three core areas: business awareness, environmental awareness and social awareness. These core areas each year provide for the establishment of specific targets for improvement. For 2020, specifically, ten main targets have been defined: promoting eco-innovation, implementing measures to reduce energy consumption and encourage the use of green energy, obtaining ISO14001 and ISO45001 certification, reducing carbon footprint by 50%, reducing paper consumption by 50%, making progress towards sustainable mobility, promoting corporate volunteering, in-depth exploration of measures of equality and conciliation, developing a 360º welfare plan for all collaborators and promoting both internal and external communication in sustainability matters.
Not greatly affected as yet by the COVID-19 crisis
The pharmaceutical industry is one of the essential sectors in this crisis. From the start of the state of emergency and confinement, Uriach has continued to operate, to produce and to distribute in order to guarantee the supply of its products. From the very start, Uriach implemented an operational protocol to counter COVID-19, with safety measures for its factories’ collaborators. Moreover, the rest of collaborators, when possible, started working remotely from home from the very first day, trouble-free because of the technology deployed in recent years. All these measures have enabled the company’s factories to continue production at 100% and to guarantee distribution, without having to interrupt normal operations.
During the easing of restrictions, Uriach has continued promoting flexibility measures among its employees so they may adapt and reconcile family life during the weeks remaining until the new normality, with the option of remote work still a priority.
As regards the economic impact, it is still very early to evaluate the effects that the crisis may have on the company’s income statement. Although in the first six months it is not expected to have a negative impact on envisaged results, we need to observe how the possible post-Covid economic and consumption crisis evolves before being able to analyse properly how it might affect the results of the second half of the year.
Uriach has not only been contributing to combatting Covid-19 through its basic operations, but has also been doing whatever it can to help the healthcare system by means, for example, of donations of material to hospitals and chemists’ shops, of sending useful products for free, of monetary contributions to research projects and of a long series of actions that, as always throughout the company’s long history, have shown its social commitment.
The company also has a product from its Italian subsidiary, now sold in Spain in the Uriach Medical line, which may be particularly useful in the fight against Covid-19. This product is TIOBEC DOL, which contains two significant ingredients to this end:
- α-lipoic acid that helps to minimise the high susceptibility of human cells to coronavirus infection
- Palmitoylethanolamide (PEA) that slows inflammatory cascade by inhibiting the cytokine storm caused by coronaviruses and particularly by Covid-19
The action of these two ingredients has been extensively documented in the clinical literature since 2005, when they were studied with regard to their preventive capacity in SARS-type respiratory infections. We know that meta-analyses related directly to our product are being undertaken for publication in prestigious scientific journals, while we are running specific clinical studies to demonstrate scientifically how this product can contribute to preventing and reducing the action of Covid-19.