Fidson Healthcare Plc has recorded 15 per cent growth in sales in 2018 as the company continues to grow its business.
The company’s audited financial report showed that turnover rose from N14.06 billion in 2017 to N16.23 billion in 2018.
Managing Director, Fidson Healthcare Plc, Fidelis Ayebae, said the increase in revenue was as a result of volume growth from expanded production at the company’s new World Health Organisation (WHO)-compliant factory.
He said the plant, which was commissioned in 2016, is a key driver of the company’s growth strategy and local sourcing initiatives, noting that the new factory is one of the most sophisticated manufacturing facilities in Africa and is well positioned to meet the rising demand for medicines in Nigeria and the broader West-African region.
He noted that the growth in revenue was achieved in spite of a challenging year for the pharmaceutical industry, which saw some therapeutic substances being banned by the government and costs increasing on key production inputs.
According to him, these challenges made the company’s cost of sales to go up by over 40 per cent from N6.90 billion in 2017 to N9.91 billion in 2018. Other factors that affected its cost of sales include increased logistics cost for imported materials due to congestion at the seaports, which drove up the cost of transporting goods from the ports by 1000 per cent.