Noucor, the company created by the investment group MCH Private Equity after the purchase of the pharmaceutical business it acquired from Uriach in 2021, closed the 2023 fiscal year with a turnover of 119 million euros, a figure that represents a 19% growth compared to 2022. This is the second full fiscal year for the chemical-pharmaceutical company, which is headquartered in Palau-Solità i Plegamans (Barcelona) and specializes in the production of active ingredients and drugs for third parties, with clients in more than one hundred countries.
With a workforce of 500 employees, Noucor has three production plants in the Barcelona area, in the towns of Sant Fost de Campsentelles and Palau-solità i Plegamans, all of them acquired from the Uriach family group, which decided to divest from the B2B business area to focus on over-the-counter medicines and the consumer health market, natural products, and food supplements.
According to Noucor, to cope with this double-digit growth in 2023, it allocated an investment of 8.4 million to improve its factories, a figure that this year will rise to 11.5 million, meaning 20 million will have been invested in two years. To this figure must be added the investment in research and development (R&D), which in 2023 reached 7.4 million and for this year 9.3 million have been budgeted. Both items will accumulate 36 million between 2023 and 2024.
"The growing investment in R&D last year, which was 17% higher than in 2022, has allowed us to consolidate the development of new drugs that will be key to the company's growth in the coming years," highlights Noucor's CEO, David Perdigó.
According to the executive, regarding fixed assets, 55% of the 8.4 million invested has been allocated to the improvement and expansion of the Urquima chemical plant, located in Sant Fost de Campsentelles, where the focus has been on environmental measures and increasing productive capacity. This factory received a year ago European Next Generation funds to reduce by 80% the volume of wastewater generated and reuse the clean water obtained after the evaporation process. This environmental improvement project will be completed between 2024 and 2025 and will allow a reduction of more than 60% in the emission of volatile organic compounds released into the atmosphere.
Thus, Urquima will again concentrate 60% of the planned 11.6 million investments this year. The rest will be distributed among the two factories in Palau-Solità i Plegamans, one specialized in pharmaceutical products and the other in food supplements. In Urquima, in addition to environmental improvements, its surface area and warehouses will be expanded.
According to the company, among the most notable business milestones achieved are the entry of its flagship product, the antihistamine Rupatadine, into key markets such as Japan and Canada; its consolidation in the European market and, more recently, its entry into the Chinese market.