Madrid, Oct. 13, 2024 (Lusa) - Portuguese pharmaceutical company BIAL devotes 20% of its turnover to research, to continue to focus on neurosciences and invest in rare diseases, the company's executive chairman, António Portela, said on Sunday.
"What is clear to us today is that without innovation it is very difficult to grow. Of course, we can buy this innovation or we can develop it internally. We've made a very big commitment to developing it ourselves, but we've also made some purchases from abroad to help us grow," said António Portela, in an interview with Lusa in Madrid.
BIAL, which celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2024, has two of its own medicines, one for epilepsy, which has been on the market since 2009, and another for Parkinson's disease, launched in 2020.
These two drugs accounted for 60% of the BIAL group's total sales worldwide in 2023, up 12% on 2022.
BIAL traditionally dedicates 20% of its sales volume to research and development (R&D) and "will continue to do so", said António Portela.
"Although these figures are very high in Portugal, they are not in the pharmaceutical world. We felt we needed to invest more. Therefore, our commitment is to continue investing. We need to increase our turnover and the company's scale so that we can devote more resources to research and development," he said.
According to António Portela, the 20% is explained by allowing the company to maintain a balanced financial situation.
"What we've been trying to do is increase the company's scale, grow the company in terms of turnover, because this will allow us to allocate more to research and development," he emphasised.
BIAL began by focusing its research on neurosciences and cardiovascular areas, but three years ago, it took stock of its results to make decisions for the coming years.
The choice was to maintain the focus on neuroscience, which has been more successful with the launch of two drugs, and to drop the cardiovascular area, which has never achieved great results.
Alongside the focus on neurosciences, BIAL is also investing in rare diseases, revealed António Portela.
"We probably won't be able to launch our next drug until the end of the decade," he added.
However, BIAL is launching a new drug for Parkinson's disease, using a licence from an American company whose rights for Europe have been bought by the Portuguese pharmaceutical company.
According to António Portela, BIAL aims to be "the leading neuroscience company in Europe".
The new drug has already been launched in Germany and will be launched in Spain and Portugal in January.
MP/ADB // ADB.
Lusa
