Alicante-based Asacpharma is the best example that in a business dominated by large multinationals there is also room for more modest firms, if they know how to direct their efforts to the right niche. Founded more than 50 years ago, the company has specialized its activity in three large divisions: one focused on the development of drugs for the treatment of osteomuscular pathologies; another for cosmetics, through the Atache brand; and another specialized in immunology (Asac Pharmaceutical Immunology), with which it has become one of the few Spanish pharmaceutical companies capable of producing bacterial autovaccines, one of the most important advances in recent years to combat recurrent infections and which is one of the the big bets of the firm to promote its growth in the coming years. As its CEO explains, Elisha Allerit was in 1986 when the group made its first foray into the field of immunology, with the start-up of a plant for the manufacture of allergy vaccines, which were already prepared individually for each patient based on allergenic extracts.
From the beginning they saw in this specialty a way to grow abroad, which led them first to open a subsidiary in Brazil, in 1995, and later another in Mexico, in 1999. An evolution that caught the attention of the French multinational Stallergenes, that in 2005 it decided to buy the goodwill and commercial network for all of Europe from them and demanded exclusivity in manufacturing for 10 years.
It was after this parenthesis that the company decided to redouble its commitment to this segment -in parallel to its other two divisions- and invested four million euros in the complete reform and updating of its plant, which ended in 2019. An investment that was the one that allowed to add to the sublingual anti-allergy vaccines -for those that come to produce their own mites- the manufacture of bacterial autovaccines.
The latter are used as a treatment against recurrent infections, such as cystitis or those that usually affect the respiratory tract, and their great advantage is that they are produced with the pathogens themselves that are extracted from the samples of affected patients, which provides a much higher efficiency, as explained by the head of ‘Business Intelligence’ of the firm, Julio Gosalbez.
In other words, they constitute a totally personalized and unique treatment, which is created specifically for each person based on the bacteria they have in their body, which are cultivated and deactivated to manufacture the vaccine, as explained by the person in charge of the plant, Flavia Hernandez. An alternative that is increasingly attractive given the increase in resistance to antibiotics that many patients develop.
Currently, Asac has the capacity to produce some 400,000 vaccines per year, although it has already bought the attached warehouse with the aim of expanding the facilities and increasing the volume of manufacturing. In terms of business, its objective is to double the income of this division in three years and go from the current 7 million to a figure of around 15 million.
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As a whole, the company aspires to raise the 42 million euros of turnover with which it closed last year to around 60 million in the same period. Despite the fact that its great commitment to the future is immunology, the division that generates the most income continues to be musculoskeletal, where it has also specialized in niche products, which allow it to gain a foothold against the products of large multinationals. Thus, its latest launches are a fentanyl patch for chronic pain and a tablet to treat hyperuricemia, that is, gout.
The group currently has five production plants. Two in Alicante, one in Murcia, another in Brazil and the last one in Morocco, which is another of the company’s big markets. In total, Asacpharma exports its products to 40 countries and makes two thirds of its turnover abroad.