Sales breakdown 2004 - Solvay

Global Annual Report Solvay 2004
16
In 2004 the Group decided to consolidate ownership of
all its pharmaceutical units under Solvay Pharmaceuticals
SARL, a 100% Solvay-owned Luxembourg company.
The Group has been concentrating the management of
all its pharmaceutical activities in Solvay Pharmaceuticals
since August 2004. The advantages for the Pharmaceuticals
sector of effecting this concentration are:
– simplification of its organization and major processes,
improving its competitiveness;
– greater autonomy, enabling it to take more rapidly the best
decisions to expand its activities - internally by managing
the Research pipeline and externally by acquisitions and
other agreements - and accelerate its growth; and
– better alignment of legal (ownership) and operational
(management) structures, giving shorter, more
efficient and less cumbersome decision-making and
operational paths.
The Chief Executive Officer of Solvay Pharmaceuticals,
effective January 1, 2005, is Dr Werner Cautreels,
previously Worldwide Head of Research and Development,
who succeeded Mr Jürgen Ernst on the latter’s retirement.
Developments by individual therapeutic
fields and geographic areas
Pharmaceutical Sector sales decreased slightly in 2004 on
a constant currency basis, whilst falling by 5% in euros from
2003. Sales were affected by contract renegotiations with
American primary distributors, which held down sales for
a number of months, the continuing debate in the USA
on female hormone replacement therapy and pressures
on prices. European sales were also affected by falling
consumption caused by funding deficits in health systems.
The United States remains the sector’s largest market,
with 31% of sales. Sales in NAFTA declined by 5% in
US dollars for the reasons mentioned above.
In Europe, notwithstanding restrictive policies, price
controls and the promotion of generic drugs, the Sector
made good progress, with sales up nearly 5% in several
countries, such as Italy, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Belgium,
the United Kingdom, Central and Eastern Europe and
the Nordic and Baltic countries. Sales dipped, however,
in France (-4%) and more significantly in the
German-speaking countries.
In our priority development zones of Asia (Japan, China,
India), Middle East, Latin America (Brazil) and Canada,
progress was varied.
Beacon products in 2004
ANDROGEL ® , a male hormone product sold in North
America, was Solvay’s top-selling drug in 2004.
Behind ANDROGEL ® , the best sales figures were evenly
distributed over all therapeutic areas. The largest growth was
turned in by four products, PANTOLOC ® , INFLUVAC ®
SERC ® and TEVETEN ® (+11% compared with 2003).