Galenica : Pleasing sales growth and increase of 2019 earnings guidance

Galenica clearly outperformed the market in all Business sectors despite the fact that sales continued to be negatively impacted by the federal price reduction measures implemented in 2018 and 2019. Dynamic expansion activities and acquisitions as well as the launch of new products and services contributed to this pleasing performance.

With an unchanged, very high generic substitution rate of around 70%, the Galenica Group pharmacies (including Coop Vitality) again made a contribution of more than CHF 60 million¹⁾ to reducing healthcare costs for patients and health insurers.

Based on the pleasing sales development, Galenica is increasing its earnings guidance for 2019: adjusted operating result EBIT (excluding the effects of IAS 19 and IFRS 16) is expected to increase by between 7% to 9%. The outlook regarding the proposal of a dividend of at least at the same level as the prior year to the 2020 Annual General Meeting remains unchanged.

^{1) Calculated using average price differential between original and generic of 29.9%, according to the study 'Effizienzbeitrag der Generika' (Efficiency contribution of generics), 2019 edition, bwa Consulting Bern}