Daiwa-SSI invests in CVI Pharma’s ambition

"This is CVI Pharma's first wholly-invested plant that will deal with all steps of the production of cosmetics and pharmaceuticals. Once put into operation in 2018, the factory will standardise technical barriers, helping the firm to better meet the demands of its target market," Phan Van Hieu, chairman of CVI Pharma, told VIR.

"2017 will mark a milestone for CVI Pharma in the years to come, as Daiwa-SSI has decided to acquire 20 per cent of the company. The Japanese fund will help us connect with potential Japanese and Taiwanese partners, thus enabling us to approach new technologies and export products to these markets," he added.

Established in 2013, when the local pharmaceutical market was already dominated by large-scale Vietnamese pharmaceuticals, such as Traphaco (TRA), Domesco (DMC), and DHG Pharma (DHG), thanks to their strong distribution networks and brand names, CVI Pharma has decided to focus on niche markets to establish itself in the highly competitive market.

"In our product strategies, we avoid market segments where the giants are holding the majority stakes. For example, in the over-the-counter (OTC) market, there are five market segments with revenue of over VND1 trillion," he added

CVI Pharma has been focusing on new high-tech applications to increasing the value of its herbal products. Extraction and nano technology were named in the prioritised development list in the high-tech industry approved by the prime minister.

Currently, CVI Pharma's domestic partner in production is Mediplantex. The firms have recently inaugurated a new factory in Quang Minh Industrial Park in Hanoi, which has the most modern South Korean technology-equipped capsule production assembly lines with a capacity of 1.2 million capsules a day.

This year, CVI pharma will continue to cooperate with research and development centres and institutes, as well as senior scientists to study a set of standards for CVI Pharma products to meet international standards, thus enabling it to penetrate markets like Japan, South Korea, China, and Taiwan as well as others in Southeast Asia.

"We will continue to focus on the OTC market in the future. At present, we have a distribution network spanning 63 cities and provinces with a portfolio of 12 products, including six key products, like Nano Curcumin," he said.

With an annual growth rate of 30-50 per cent, CVI Pharma has nearly 9,000 drugstores as regular customers. It plans to introduce two new products to the market in the first quarter of 2018.

CVI Pharma made VND150 billion ($6.8 million) in revenue in 2016 and the firm aims to double the figure to VND300 billion ($13.6 million) in 2017.

"We plan to launch an initial public offering (IPO) in the next three-to-four years and then list in the stock market. We aim to become one of the top ten drug producers in Vietnam in the next five years, with revenue of VND1 trillion ($45.45 million)," Hieu noted.