Social distancing and strict control at hospitals, and an economic recession due to COVID-19, resulted in lower sales of both prescription and non-prescription drugs. However, many companies still witnessed outstanding performance.

In the fourth quarter financial results, Central Pharmaceutical JSC No3 (DP3) reported a gain of 8% year-on-year in net revenue, but its profit after tax was 11.6 times higher than that in 2019 to VND38.2 billion.

The good result was due to a strong increase in financial activities income (up 15.2 times), and a decrease in interest expenses (down 20.7%) and other expenses (down nearly 70%).

Last year, the company’s profit after tax was VND114.05 billion, 13 times higher than that of 2019.

Imexpharm Corporation (IMP)’s net revenue in the last quarter of 2020 dropped 5.6% year-on-year to VND478 billion. But a decline in costs of goods sold (nearly 12%), general and administrative expenses (52.4%) and other expenses (70.5%) helped its profit after tax rise against the same period of 2019.

Imexpharm saw an increase of 35.3% in profit after tax in the fourth quarter of last year to nearly VND70.4 billion. For the whole of 2020, its profit after tax rose over 29% to VND209.7 billion.

Another drug company seeing good performance last year was Traphaco JSC (TRA). In the fourth quarter, Traphaco posted a rise of 11.6% in revenue to over VND602 billion. Its profit after tax increased by 20.1% to VND75.3 billion in the same period.

In 2020, the company’s profit after tax climbed nearly 27.2% to VND216.75 billion.

Similarly, DHG Pharmaceutical JSC (DHG)’s profit after tax increased by 2.76% year-on-year to VND209.5 billion in the last quarter of 2020. Its profit after tax also rose slightly by 1.2% to VND738.5 billion in 2020.

Even though seeing a decrease of 11.3% in the last quarter last year, Binh Dinh Pharmaceutical and Medical Equipment JSC (DBD)'s profit after tax still posted a gain of 14.4% for the whole year.