Corrected statement
March 23 /PRNewswire/ -- ICN Pharmaceuticals (NYSE: ICN) said today it will invest up to $10 million in Bosnia and Herzegovina as part of the company's expansion in Eastern Europe. The initial investment will be in the Republika Srpska in the form of credits for the purchase of medicine in 1998. Milan Panic, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ICN and former Prime Minister of Yugoslavia, said in a meeting with Prime Minister Milorad Dodik of Republika Srpska that the company considered its Eastern European investments as an important contribution to the economic development of the region. Economic progress, Mr. Panic said, is a prerequisite for political stabilization in the region, particularly in the countries of former Yugoslavia. ICN investment, Mr. Panic went on to say, will include the acquisition of a manufacturing facility in Banja Luka (a city in the Republic Srpska), where 16 ICN products are planned to be introduced. The products include antibiotics, cardiovascular medicines, anti-rheumatics and analgesics. The products, which will be transferred from an ICN Yugoslavia production facility in Belgrade, will be distributed in Bosnia and Herzegovina, other countries of the former Yugoslavia, and other neighboring countries. ICN will expand its network of retail pharmacies in Republika Srpska from four to twelve. The investment in the new company, to be called ICN Krajina, is the latest investment by ICN in Eastern Europe. The company is currently in negotiations for the acquisition of a pharmaceutical company in Sarajevo, located in The Moslem-Croat Federation, another part of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Recently, ICN also announced, in a meeting between Mr. Panic and President Emil Constantinescu of Romania, that the company would take a stake in a major Romanian pharmaceutical company. In January 1998, after a meeting between Mr. Panic and Prime Minister Fatos Nano of Albania, it was announced that ICN would make an investment in Albania. Also in January, a joint venture of ICN and OHIS, a Macedonian company, was begun in Macedonia under the name ICN Macedonia. And in December 1997, a new subsidiary of ICN Pharmaceuticals was officially opened in Montenegro. ICN also operates companies in Poland and Hungary and has become the leading pharmaceutical producer and marketer in Russia. The company operates five manufacturing companies and a distribution center in Moscow, where it has a new 12-story European headquarters building. ICN is the leading pharmaceutical company in Eastern Europe. Its Eastern European sales in 1997 totaled $433 million, of which $134 million came from Russia, where the company sells 200 prescription pharmaceutical products and where it has 7,000 employees (out of 13,300 in Eastern Europe as a whole). ICN Pharmaceuticals, Inc. manufactures and markets a broad range of prescription and non-prescription pharmaceuticals and biotechnology research products in over 90 countries. In addition to Eastern Europe, ICN also has operations in North and Latin America, Western Europe, and the Pacific Rim countries. For the 12 months ended December 31, 1997, the company earned a net income of $114 million on sales of $752 million. Basic earnings per share rose to $1.93, while diluted earnings per share were $1.69. |
