Warsaw Stock Exchange-listed pharmaceuticals distributor Farmacol plans to make investments totaling at least zł.50 million next year.

The company will spend zł.31.3 million on improving its logistics network and around zł.13.25 million on a packaging line. It will use zł.5-6 million on unifying the IT systems of its subsidiaries. Farmacol also has its eye on making acquisitions and has plans to enter the development market at some time between 2009-2010.

The investments are targeted at increasing Farmacol's net profitability to around two percent. In Q1-Q3 2007 the firm's profitability stood at 1.51 percent, according to Farmacol vice president Aleksander Chomiakow. The company wants to have a 19-percent share of the pharmaceuticals distribution market by next summer. In November this figure stood at 18 percent.

By increasing its logistical capacity, Farmacol will be better positioned to face the pharmaceutical distribution market in the future, said Mariusz Ignatowicz, a pharmaceutical market analyst at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

"The market will see wholesalers squeezed out ... logistics companies themselves are also growing stronger in the sector," he told WBJ.

The packaging line is a good idea too, Ignatowicz claimed. Pharmaceutical producers have been eager too use distributors to package their products, he said. This move may be attractive to smaller foreign producers in particular.

Entering the development market could help to diversify the company's portfolio, but development is so far from its core business that it could also harm the firm's image, Ignatowicz said. It is also a bit too late to enter development, since the market has already passed its peak, he argued. "[Farmacol] may be a bit late for this train," he said.