Japan's Fuji Pharma set to take 99.91% in Kingdom's top drug-maker OLIC

“Under Fuji Pharma’s medium-term business plan themed ‘Good to Great’, the medium/long-term vision for 2015 is to grow overseas and to establish a new competitive edge as a pharmaceutical company,” Hirofumi Imai, president and CEO of Fuji Pharma, said in a statement yesterday.
“To achieve these objectives, our priority has been on overseas business investment, which we will be able to realise through this transaction in order to fully begin developing Fuji Pharma’s overseas business,” he said.
Under the share sale agreement signed with Zurich-based DKSH Group on August 3 and to be completed in October, Fuji Pharma will spend 52.5 million Swiss francs (Bt1.7 billion) for the 99.91-per-cent stake in OLIC. Both companies have been business partners for years.
Joerg Wolle, president and CEO of DKSH, said the sale is in line with the group’s strategy to refocus on its core business as a provider of market expansion services, from sourcing, marketing, sales and distribution to after-sales services. The OLIC contract manufacturing facility is a heritage, non-core activity of DKSH.
With a plant in Ayutthaya, OLIC posted revenue of Bt1.07 billion in fiscal 2011 and Bt1.39 billion in 2010. Against a net loss of Bt18.2 million last year, it reaped a net profit of Bt32.9 million in the previous year.
Founded in 1961, OLIC provides contract manufacturing services for pharmaceutical, healthcare, confectionery and supplementary industries. It employs over 850 people, manufacturing over 550 products for more than 35 multinational corporations.
OLIC has a wide client base of major pharmaceutical firms from Japan, Europe, the US, and across the rest of the globe. The products manufactured by OLIC are not only distributed in Thailand, but across Asia and the rest of the world, and since 2000, Fuji Pharma has also contracted some of its products to OLIC.
Fuji Pharma is mainly engaged in the manufacture and sale of medical products – hormone medicines for the obstetrics and gynaecology department, as well as injectable drugs for the radiological department such as radiopaque dye for urinary tracts and blood vessels through seven branches.
“OLIC fits perfectly with our existing operations and business in Japan and Asia, and we are committed to investing and growing OLIC even more, and further enhancing its already well-established reputation and performance,” Imai said.
The company is not only acquiring OLIC’s factory but also know-how and access to its client base.
“By utilising OLIC as a manufacturing base, we will strive to further the production, distribution and use of Fuji Pharma products starting in Asia and across the world.”
Charles Toomey, head of the global healthcare business of DKSH, said Fuji’s decision to expand its operations into Thailand is proof of the increasing trend of Asian companies investing and growing in their own region, thereby driving inner-Asian growth.