Forté Pharma sales up 1.5% in 2012
Natraceutical, which saw French botanicals extracts supplier Naturex divest from the division during the year, said weight control products accounted for 66% of Forté Pharma’s sales of €29.93 for the year (€29.48m in 2011).
However weight control products did in fact fall 5.8% for the year and the company emphasised activity in ‘health’ products, where it made four launches compared to only one weight loss launch and one ‘beauty’ debut.
Although moving from a smaller base, ‘health’ grew 15.3% and ‘beauty’ 12.3%.
It also launched two OTC products utilising the firm’s pharma-grade manufacturing facility.
France was the biggest market accounting for 66.9% of sales but down 3.7%, followed by Benelux (12.2%; +2.8%) and Spain (11.1%; +9.3%).
On France the company said: “This market presented a clear improvement in the second half of the year, with increases of 11.2% and 28.4% in the third and fourth quarter respectively. This was mainly thanks to the activity in the Tonics, Vitamins and Health ranges, which enabled the company to contain the decline in sales to 3.7% for the whole year, after declines of 23.9% and 1.2% in the first and second quarters, respectively.”
Smaller markets
Forté Pharma noted growth in smaller markets including, “significant progress of the United Kingdom, which ended the year with a growth of 35.7% and managed to position itself as a third country of export in less than two years. Currently, Forté Pharma is present in Boots, Lloyds and Superdrug.”
“Finally, the improvement of the Business led Forté Pharma to restart trade relations with countries that had not been considered a priority in the last years, such as Greece, Morocco, Tunisia and the French-speaking islands of the Pacific and the Caribbean.”
