Biotika sacks leadership due to poor 1997 results

After Biotika, Slovakia's largest antibiotics producer, saw a 130 million Sk loss last year, the company decided to change its management on February 6. The huge drop in profits is attributed to a drastic fall in world prices of penicillin, Biotika's main product. Due to the fall, the company lost 300 million Sk. Since two thirds of company's capacity is tied to biotechnological and fermentation production, not even a 100 percent increase in other production could cover the soaring deficit gap. Miroslav Otčenáš, Biotika's new general director, and Jozef Ďuriš, the new economic director, therefore announced a substantial restructuring in the company's product portfolio. In 1992, over 59 percent of Biotika was privatized in a voucher privatization, but the controlling package was sold in February 1996 to G.V. Pharma, a company with strong personnel ties to Slovakofarma, a pharmaceutical giant.