Research and Development in Hungary
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In a market environment as sharp and as quickly changing as the pharmaceutical market, long-term, steady development cannot be realized without innovation. Original and generic research and development has thus for a long time been a central element of our company’s strategy. Our R&D lies on four pillars: our research experience of nearly eighty years, our 503 colleagues working in this field, our strong cooperation with Servier and our continuously growing expenses devoted to innovation. We are considered an outstandingly innovative company on a regional level, too: we dedicate the fourth largest amount to R&D among all the industrial companies present in the CEE region and the ratio of our R&D investments and turnover is the highest in Hungary and the third highest in the CEE region (2011 EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard). In the 2010/2011 financial year we spent 9%, HUF 11.6 billion on research and development.
Our drug development unit has recently moved to a new plant: in December 2010 the construction of our new, 3500-square-meter technological research base was finished. The construction of the facility, where our 70 colleagues – chemists, pharmacists and engineers – carry out drug formulation, altogether cost HUF 3.76 billion. By establishing a new plant with cutting-edge technology, we can accelerate our generic product development.
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Generic development
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One of the most important aims of our generic development is to develop such products that can provide new alternatives for the patients at a more favorable price than the original product. In the past years we have launched a great number of products that combine the active ingredients of two drugs, have a retard effect or can be taken more easily by the patients. Several of our products have a better physical or chemical stability or their active ingredient has higher purity than other products available in the market.
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Our strong cooperation with our majority shareholder, Servier forms the basis of our original research. Discovery research is carried out within the framework of a collaboration agreement established on 1 October 2006, which at the same time enabled the introduction of modern, cutting-edge technologies and together with the remarkable amounts dedicated to research and development from our net sales it has completely transformed the research activities of Egis PLC.
Research has traditionally been in the focus of our strategic partner: every drug produced by Servier is the result of its own research. The leading private French pharmaceutical company devotes 25% of its sales to R&D (whereas the world’s TOP10 pharmaceutical companies spend on average 14% on it). Servier’s most important fields of research are the central nervous system, oncology, the cardiovascular system, rheumatology and metabolic diseases. Nearly 3000 colleagues of Servier work on around 80 R&D projects in the company’s 19 research centers around the world. Servier is one of the most important partners of the French National Health and Medical Research Institute (INSERM) and the French National Scientific Research Centre (CNRS). The result of an outstanding research work ever since the beginnings is more than 27 thousand patents worldwide (www.servier.hu).
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By the end of the 2010/2011 financial year, Egis PLC had altogether 2541 drug registrations: 2237 abroad and 304 in Hungary.
In the 2010/2011 financial year our portfolio expanded with an outstanding amount of new products: we launched eight new products in our markets.
Between 1 October 2010 and 30 September 2011, we filed 13 new patent applications in Hungary.
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