Basel, Sept 10 - Swiss drugs industry supplier Lonza said demand for its products was good, its pipeline was full and it expects to benefit from the pharmaceutical industry's shift to outsource drugs production.
After the successful integration of acquired companies, Lonza could turn buyer again, Chief Financial Officer Toralf Haag also told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday.
Haag said that the company expects to have 1.5 billion to 2 billion Swiss francs ($1.3 billion to $1.8 billion) for acquisitions next year, adding that to return that sum to shareholders would be Lonza's "least favoured" option.
Global drug makers have outsourced roughly a quarter of their production and the rate is likely to go up by 1-2 percentage points annually over the next few years, he said.
"We witness a clear trend to outsource production, which helps them to improve their cost structure," Haag said.
Haag said he expects the company's sales to rise over the next few years by 10 percent annually, excluding currency and raw material fluctuations.
He said current demand for its products was good and that both its biopharma division and exclusive synthesis division, which produces active ingredients for drugs and pesticides, have a full product pipeline.
The pharmaceuticals industry is having a tough time, given that around three dozen blockbuster drugs -- with a sales potential of more than 1 billion dollars -- will lose their copyright protection by 2012, one study says.
In the United States alone, Lonza's main market, a total drugs sales volume of around $67 billion is at risk.
However, the impact of this is being offset by longer running times of its contracts and the fact that blockbuster drugs make up less than 50 percent of the sales volume of its biopharma segment, Haag said.