Pharma - DCC Vital sells, markets and distributes innovative and generic pharma products in Britain and Ireland through the hospital, pharmacy and homecare channels. DCC Vital has been active in the pharmaceutical market since 2002, initially focused on intravenous hospital products. DCC Vital’s hospital portfolio encompasses a range of own and third party pharmaceuticals across a range of therapy areas including oncology, antibiotics, pain management, haematology and emergency medicine.
DCC Vital has been building its presence in the retail pharmacy channel in recent years including through the acquisition in May 2011 of the trade and assets of Neolab, a small British generic pharma business. This development was significantly accelerated during the year with the acquisition of Kent Pharma (announced in December 2012), a leading player in the British generic pharma market with strong relationships with the leading retail/wholesale pharmacy groups and independent pharmacies in Britain. Kent Pharma develops, manufactures, sells, markets and distributes generic pharmaceuticals for the British, Irish and international markets. It has a broad portfolio of its own licensed products with a particular focus on beta lactam antibiotics including penicillin V, flucloxacillin and amoxicillin, which are long established antibiotics typically used to treat bacterial infections such as throat, ear and respiratory tract infections. Kent Pharma is the market leader in these products in Britain and also operates a specialist beta lactam manufacturing facility in Roscommon, Ireland (Athlone Pharmaceuticals). The balance of the Kent product portfolio covers a broad range of therapy areas. While Kent Pharma principally sells to the retail pharmacy channel, it also sells to hospitals, other generic pharma companies and international distributors. DCC Vital now has a comprehensive portfolio of pharmaceuticals for the retail channel across a range of therapy areas including antibiotics, pain management, respiratory and addiction.
DCC Vital also provides outsourced pharma compounding services to hospitals in Ireland, through its licensed compounding facility in Dublin. This involves the aseptic filling of oncology, pain management, antibiotic and paediatric nutrition products into patient ready dosage forms i.e. syringes or IV bags. The compounding facility services the national contract for paediatric nutrition in Ireland in partnership with Fresenius Kabi. DCC Vital has leveraged its compounding capability to expand its service offering into the provision of pharma homecare services, an underdeveloped area in Ireland. This year, DCC Vital, in conjunction with United Drug plc, was awarded a contract to provide a national Outpatient Parenteral Antimicrobial Therapy (OPAT) Service, the first national pharma homecare contract to be awarded by the Irish healthcare system.
Devices - DCC Vital has a market leading position in the sales, marketing and distribution of medical devices into Irish hospitals with an extensive, highly trained field sales force and strong relationships with senior management, clinicians and procurement professionals. The business has a developing position in the medical devices sector in Britain which was significantly enhanced in January 2012 by the acquisition of the Forth Medical Group.
DCC Vital sells and markets a broad range of medical devices and consumables in areas such as woundcare, urology, procedure packs, critical care (anaesthesia, endovascular, cardiology, IV access), diagnostics, orthopaedics and neurology. Products are typically single use/consumable in nature. Capital equipment represents a small element of total sales and typically relates to generating sales of consumable products, for example the sale (or placing) of diagnostic testing equipment in order to drive sales of the consumable test kits used in the equipment.
Logistics - DCC Vital is also a leading provider of value added logistics services in Britain, providing innovative stock management and distribution services to hospitals and healthcare brand owners/manufacturers focused principally on theatre products.
DCC Vital operates in the pharma and medical device markets which are primarily government funded. Fiscal budgets in Ireland and, to a lesser extent, Britain have tightened and, in common with the majority of developed economies, the burden of care, particularly to support ageing populations, is growing. As a result healthcare providers are increasing their focus on cost saving opportunities and value for money. Public and private healthcare payers and providers are leveraging procurement scale through increased use of tendering, framework agreements, reference pricing and pharma formularies. They are switching to equivalent quality, lower cost medical products and generic pharmaceuticals as well as outsourcing activities deemed to be non-core. DCC Vital is well placed to benefit from these trends.