This article is from page 7 of the 2005-08-30 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 7 JPG
SHANNON-BASED pharmaceutical firm, Schwarz Pharma incurred a loss of over €6 million in its most recent accounts filed with the Companies Registration Office.
The loss arose from €11 million the company spent on financing a restructuring programme, which in- volved the redundancy of 70 staff in a programme launched two years ago.
The accounts for 2003 show that the company had an operating profit of just under €5 million on a turnover of €36 million. This was marginally up on the €4.63 million figure for 2002. However, profit was wiped out with the restructuring costs totalling €11.207 million.
The loss of €6 million was the first loss that Schwarz Pharma made in a number of years, during which the company accumulated profits of €33 million.
However, when accounts for 2004/5 are published, the profits are expected to be hit by the company in- vesting €6 million in new technology aimed at im- proving the company’s environmental performance.
The spend follows the company shutting down its production processes for six weeks earlier this year,
in response to local concerns over air emissions from the plant. The company is now compliant with its Inte- erated Pollution Control (IPC) licence.
The accounts also show that the company’s intan- gible assets are valued at €157 million at the end of 2003 — a massive increase of €84 million on the 2002 figure. Tangible assets stood at €35 million in 2003.
In an attached note, it’s stated that milestone pay- ments were made on the achievement of certain results involving research and development.
The company is in the process of a €70 million in- vestment at its plant over the next five years. The com- pany’s Director of Environment and Health and Safety, Dermot Hanrahan recently said that clinical trials in relation to new drugs “are going very well”.
It is upgrading its treatment plant and spending over €10 million on new equipment and the upgrading of existing equipment for new products.
Shannon owns the intellectual property and, corre- spondingly, the distribution rights for some of the new products and is currently preparing for the launch of these products. The first new product launched will be for the treatment of Parkinson’s Disease and is sched- uled for the end of 2005.