Pelion's activities

The third quarter 2006 has been another one in a row that the Polish Pharmaceutical Group (PGF) has maintained the trend to increase its financial results. With 5.8% income growth, the operating profit increased by EBITDA has improved by 13.8% in relation to the analogical period 2005, and the net result has improved by nearly 11%. Increasingly, after 9 months PGF’s sales income has amounted to nearly 3 billion PLN. Improvement in operation productivity has at the same time allowed to increase the profit margin on both the operating and net levels.

The good results achieved in the third, traditionally the weakest, quarter of the year make a good basis to achieving another record net revenue in the whole year 2006.
– We are foreseeing that our net result at the end of the year will not be lower than 62.5 million PLN. This would mean a 20% growth on 2005. Therefore we would keep the promise we made to the shareholders about maintaining a two-digit net profit growth while continually making investments to develop PGF potential – said Mr. Jacek Szwajcowski, President, Polish Pharmaceutical Group.

One of the Group’s major investments is the development of the partner programme “Pharmacies I Care About Health” (Apteki Dbam o Zdrowie), which has its 5th anniversary in November this year. In 2006 the process has been completed of building a homogenous appearance of 1600 Pharmacies I Care About Health. – Together with pharmacy owners co-operating with us we have created a brand which is unique in the Polish market. The scale of the programme makes it an important venture not only in the Polish market, but also in bigger and more mature markets, like the US market. Thanks to this programme, PGF has built a substantial competitive advantage with respect to benefits that we can offer to producers, pharmacists, patients and shareholders. This advantage gives potential to maintain the Group’s high growth rate in the future – said Mr. Szwajcowski.

The Pharmacies I Care About Health programme was launched in November 2001. The idea to organize it was a result of the strategy stating that the basis for PGF success is the success of pharmacies co-operating with the Group. It meant it was necessary to implement tools which would have helped PGF clients to develop. Also surveys conducted among pharmacists, owners of private pharmacies confirmed potential efficiency of such actions. They needed support which would make their pharmacies more attractive to customers.

This was how the “Pharmacies I care About Health” programme was created. On the one hand it sets out that PGF will help at development of private pharmacies, and on the other there is a continual contact and learning about the needs of patients. It is their decisions that have an impact on the pharmacy’s success and this is why they also were invited to participate in the programme. All patients who have filled in proper declarations can count on many benefits including participation in a loyalty programme, opportunity to buy medicines on credit which has no interest for maximum 45 days, or a free-of-charge magazine dedicated in its entirety to healthcare and a healthy lifestyle. On the other hand PGF trains pharmacy personnel how to talk with the customer, how to improve the quality of service, and how to get to know the needs of patients. PGF also supports pharmacies in their marketing operations.

PGF – financial results