Sunshine Holdings to manufacture meds locally
View(s):Sunshine Holdings PLC, buoyed by support to local manufacture of drugs under the National Medicinal Drug Regulatory Authority, is to commence manufacturing drugs locally in the next few years, officials said. “We are eyeing to set up a manufacturing plant in a Board of Investment zone at about US$ 10 million,” an official told the Business Times.
He said that they believe it’s important to adopt adequate measures to ensure quality of imports as well as locally manufactured products. Analysts say that some moderation is expected in the industry growth given the expected expansion in the State Pharmaceuticals manufacturing Corporation (SPC) where an investment of Rs. 1.6 billion has been phased out up to 2015 in order to enhance production capacity. SPC is the only state sector entity engaged in manufacturing of high quality pharmaceuticals in Sri Lanka and making them available at affordable prices.
Sunshine’s retail arm Healthguard Pharmacies offers a range of pharmaceuticals, wellness and beauty products in 17 outlets across the Colombo with this chain recording a net profit of Rs. 23 million and a revenue growth of 15 per cent YoY in FY15 mainly driven by the growth in beauty product sales by 10 per cent in the last financial year. The official said that the company expects an aggressive expansion in this segment to a total of 50 outlets by 2017.
Sunshine Holdings currently has the second largest market share in the pharmaceutical industry with a market share of 14 per cent in FY2015 and is the market leader in the Diagnostic sector.