As second quarter earnings become impacted by Hurricane Beryl and associated supply chain disruptions, pharmaceutical company RA Williams Distributors Limited is seeking to push growth with its continuous roll-out of new products.

Pointing to an almost one per cent growth in three-month revenues which totalled $367 million, CEO Audley Reid said though not a big leap, the performance reflects the company’s ability to adapt to changes and to stay on course despite prevailing uncertainties in the current environment.

“Despite the challenges we have encountered during the reporting period, we believe we have laid a platform from which we can extract significant growth as we move forward. Towards the end of the second quarter, we launched seven new products building out our drug portfolio from the two we brought on stream at the start of the financial year. One of the product, Iracet, which is the first and only generic alternative to the brand Keppra available in Jamaica, comes as a ground-breaking development in the treatment of epilepsy and its launch in the context of the country’s current economic slowdown presents an opportunity for RA Williams to take advantage of its use in the local market,” he said in responding to queries from the Jamaica Observer about the company’s latest financial performance on Monday.

Stung by a quarterly net loss of $16.5 million— five times more than that seen for the similar period in 2023, the CEO expressed confidence that the company will soon begin to rebound from setbacks, especially as it gets ready to add more drugs from new product lines.

The addition of at least four of the products rolled out during the quarter have already positively impacted the entity’s gross profit margins — resulting in a 14 per cent increase. The products targeted cold and flu symptoms, digestive issues, skin and scalp conditions and dietary challenges.

“Our numbers at the moment are not entirely the best but we believe the quarter shows resilience in our operations and based on the products we’ve launched so far, we have been laying the platform for future growth and so we expect to start seeing an uptick in our revenue performance over the next two quarters and towards the beginning of the new financial year,” Reid told the Business Observer while anticipating higher growth as key products from the Fourrts line are added this quarter.

“We’re now looking forward to 2025 when we expect to roll out additional products — maybe about 18 new ones — spanning various treatment categories ranging from antibiotics, anti-fungal, cardiovascular as well as some anti-diabetic treatment options. We’re confident that as we continue addressing these pressing health challenges, we’ll see not only an increase in the impact we make but will also begin to realise steady growth in our revenue,” he noted.

Less than a year after going public, the Junior Market listed company at the end of the six-month period or half-year mark ended October 31, 2024 secured revenues of $754.5 million accompanied by significantly reduced net profits of $7.6 million — down from $54.6 million in the prior year period.

Total revenue for the company at the end of 2023 amounted to $1.5 billion backed by profit of $85.5 million.

The pharmaceutical company now actively balancing the challenges, its Chairman John Bailey also believes it stands ready to realise better gains with the new additions.

“We’ve had a difficulty coming out of the summer period but we remain optimistic that the company’s performance will improve in the months ahead. Following the launch of our Iracet epileptic drug and some others we’re now looking at, I believe these will significantly help to push up our numbers,” he stated.

CEO Reid, in citing significant expenditure undertaken to ready the company’s more than 20,000 square feet New Brunswick Village location in Spanish Town, St Catherine coupled with other administrative expenses among the drivers for fallout during the period, also said he is hopeful that a positive spin-off from planned increases in the business will auger well for future top line growth.

Fully equipped with over 16,000 square feet of warehousing space at the new solar-powered facility which it occupied earlier this year, he further said that a process of retrofitting now underway at the building will also help the company to tighten storage efficiency across its operation.

“With this larger space…we have also positioned ourselves for expansion and we are now beginning to see how all the developments we have undertaken will take root. As it relates to our plans to move outside of Jamaica, those remain in discussion, but we’re currently looking to bolster our infrastructure and capacity locally so as to fully penetrate the market here and to compete with larger companies in the space. In launching our initial public offer (IPO) we not only wanted to raise capital to pay down on debt, but to also provide us with much-needed funds to seize a number of the opportunities that have been coming our way.

“We’re really excited about the future prospects of the company and so we continue to fine-tune our operations day-by-day in anticipation that we will attract more pharmaceutical distributors as they come knocking on our doors,” Reid said.