ScinoPharm Taiwan Ltd (台灣神隆公司), a biotechnology company in the Tainan Science-Based Industrial Park, saw pre-tax profits grow 119 percent last year on improved sales of its oncology products.
Jo Shen (馬海怡), president and CEO of ScinoPharm, said the company posted pre-tax income of NT$905 million (US$26.4 million), up 119 percent from NT$413 million in 2007, on revenues of NT$3.14 billion.
The reported revenues were 26 percent higher than the NT$2.49 billion in sales the company reported a year earlier.
The biotech company achieved strong growth at a time when annual results at most other high tech companies in the Tainan park suffered serious declines because of the global economic downturn.
Shen attributed her company’s success to the company’s management strategy and the successful marketing of its oncology products.
ScinoPharm is a leading active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) supplier to the global pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry. It provides a full range of API services from process development and production of early phase clinical trial material to large-scale manufacturing for commercial launches. The company currently serves more than 190 customers worldwide.
In November, ScinoPharm was granted a US patent for its new crystalline forms of irinotecan hydrochloride, which are designed to allow for easier filtration during production processing.
The patent covers preparation methods and use of the novel molecules in the treatment of metastatic colon cancer. It is the ninth US patent granted to ScinoPharm and the second patent for irinotecan hydrochloride, one of the company’s high-demand oncology products.
Irinotecan hydrochloride, a cancer drug most commonly used to treat patients with metastatic carcinoma of the colon or rectum, became generic in the US in February last year. Annual sales of the drug in the US market alone were about US$556 million in 2007, IMS Health data showed.
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