Record Profit at Gedeon Richter Plc.

“Sales revenues in the first nine months were up on a year-on-year basis in most markets in both HUF and EUR terms, fueled by growth in the specialty portfolio, in particular higher Vraylar® and Evra® royalties. This broad-based strength in revenue performance was translated into a solid bottomline also ex-Vraylar®, despite higher spending on R&D as planned,” the company’s CEO, Gábor Orbán said.

According to the executive summary of the results of the third quarter of this yar, in early 2021, Hungary experienced a severe third wave of the pandemic, with high infection and mortality rates thus the government extended measures taken during the second wave, including restrictions on hospitality facilities. Since then, one of the fastest vaccine rollouts in Europe has helped to improve the health situation, allowing the authorities to start gradually lifting restrictions in April 2021. With just above 60% of the population vaccinated at least once (and 57.9% fully vaccinated) by mid October Hungary has remained somewhat behind the EU/EEA combined average of 67.9% and 63.1%, respectively.

Notwithstanding the above, Richter delivered on time and in full to all its customers also during the third quarter 2021. Health and wellbeing of our colleagues remained the focus of Management, with the supply of reputed and affordable medication maintained worldwide throughout the entire reported period. Taken into account the higher rate of infections related to the fourth wave of the pandemic and being empowered by the Government of Hungary Richter’s Management is currently considering to introduce compulsory vaccination across all of its Hungarian sites.

Promotional activities did not change significantly in the third quarter 2021 when compared to the previous period. In-person promotion remained at around 85% on an average of total marketing approaches in our geographies of direct sales operations.

The CEO also highlighted that “profitability was supported by continued cost-control measures and exchange rates converging to last year’s averages in Q3. Some of those currency developments correlated with a surge in energy prices, in itself a reflection of broader supply bottlenecks globally that we have had to deal with. We have so far managed to avoid disruptions to our operations, not least thanks to growing vaccination rates.

In late October, the cariprazine phase 3 study met its primary endpoint in adjunctive treatment for Major Depressive Disorder and we expect our US partner AbbVie to file an sNDA for Vraylar® in the first half 2022. In addition, both our new innovative products in the Women’s Healthcare space are now available to patients in several European markets.”