Business & Money | Sunday 5 March, 2017 2:30 pm |

The Octapharma Group can report a record-breaking result with sales of €1.6 billion, which represents an increase of €87 million or 5.8% compared with 2015. Octapharma achieved sales growth of 18.8% in North America, 14% in Eastern Europe and 6% in its well-established markets of Western Europe. The main contributors of the growth were Octapharma’s immunoglobulin products octagam® and gammanorm®, and factor VIII products octanate®, wilate® and Nuwiq®. Gross profit in 2016 was €590 million, €8 million higher than in 2015. In 2016 Octapharma increased its investments in the future product portfolio and important markets. In addition to the €84 million investment in research and development, €166 million was spent on the extension of both the plasma collection and production divisions of Octapharma. Octapharma achieved an unprecedented operating income of €383 million. Over the last five years Octapharma has experienced strong growth with a compound annual growth rate of 15%. The development initiative, Program 2019, was launched in 2014 to double production capacity and significantly increase the overall efficiency of manufacturing operations. Octapharma has been heavily investing in people, equipment and property to prepare for the increase in production capacity and volumes.