GRÜNWALD (dpa-AFX) - Drug manufacturer Dermapharm has started the new year with lower sales and profits due to the discontinuation of the Covid vaccine business with Biontech. The integration of the new subsidiary Montavit and Arkopharma is going according to plan, said CEO Hans-Georg Feldmeier in a statement on Wednesday. This shows that the company can grow on its own even without a vaccine. In addition, the Group's product availability is back to pre-pandemic levels. The pharmaceutical manufacturer had experienced a special boom during the pandemic due to the contract production of vaccines for Biontech.

The share price recently rose by around 3.6%, making it one of the biggest winners in the SDax, the index for smaller companies. Thanks to vaccine production, Dermapharm shares were still among the winners on the stock market during the pandemic. However, the record of 91.95 euros reached in January 2022 is now a long way off. A Dermapharm share currently costs less than 37 euros. So far this year alone, the share price has fallen by more than 14 percent.

In the first three months, Dermapharm's turnover shrank by 6.4 percent year-on-year to just under 299 million euros and the operating result adjusted for special effects (adjusted EBITDA) fell by 16 percent to just under 89 million euros, as the company announced in Grünwald. The corresponding margin fell from 33.2 to 29.7 percent. Excluding the vaccine business, the margin increased significantly, it said. The bottom line was a profit of 43.1 million euros after 49.1 million in the previous year.

The decline in vaccine sales could have been compensated for the most part, but not completely, the company added. In addition, consumer restraint, particularly in France, led to a temporary decline in sales at Arkopharma. The subsidiary acquired in January 2023 is a specialist in herbal medicines.

Dermapharm confirmed its targets for the year as a whole. Turnover is set to increase to between 1.17 and 1.21 billion euros. The Group is also relying on its most recent acquisitions, the French pharmaceutical and food supplement manufacturer Arkopharma and the Austrian pharmaceutical company Montavit. The Group is aiming for an adjusted operating result of 305 to 315 million euros. This means that earnings in day-to-day business could rise or fall./mne/niw/jha/