•    HOME   
•    NEWS   
•    BUSINESS   
•    INTERNATIONAL   
•    TECH   
•    SPORTS   
•    LIFE & TIMES   
•    OPINION   
•    MY JAKARTA   
•    BLOGS   
•    EYEWITNESS   

Soho Group, one of Indonesia’s largest pharmaceutical companies, plans to spend $250 million in the next 10 years to expand its business across the archipelago.

The firm was particularly looking for a 20-hectare site in Cikarang, Bekasi, where it planned to build a factory so it could slowly transfer its facilities and workforce from Pulo Gadung, East Jakarta, Marcus John Pitt, Soho’s president director, told the Jakarta Globe in an exclusive interview on Tuesday.

“We are only producing enough to meet demand, and 25 percent of our products are being outsourced to other factories,” Pitt said.

Construction of the new facility was expected be completed in the next eight to 10 years, he added, during which time the company planned to increase its workforce by between 15 percent and 20 percent each year.

“We currently have 6,200 employees. In 2015, we would expect too have a workforce of between 8,000 and 10,000,” he said.

Soho’s revenue rose 27 percent last year, while profit increased as much as 35 percent, Pitt said.

“This year, our target is to have the same growth as last year,” he said without elaborating.

Its sales target was above the average annual growth rate for the industry, which is between 10 percent and 11 percent, he added.

By comparison, sales last year at Kalbe Farma, the country’s largest pharmaceutical company, climbed 13 percent to Rp 10.2 trillion ($1.2 billion) from a year earlier, while net income surged 39 percent to Rp 1.3 trillion.

Based on data by research firm IMS Health, Soho’s market share in Indonesia rose to 3.7 percent last year from 3.3 percent in 2009.

Pitt said that Soho also planned to expand into areas such as producing vaccines and cancer drug treatments.

Akhmad Nurcahyadi, an analyst at BNI Securities, said the company’s expansion plans would help it take advantage of a niche market.

“People do not usually spend their disposable income to buy medicine,” he said.

“They are trying to grab the niche market and create value in an unfamiliar area.”

The company’s expansion, however, would only be effective so long as the demand was there, he added.

Soho started out as Ethica Industri Farmasi, a company founded by Tan Tjhoen Lim in 1946 to manufacture drugs for the prescription medicine market. Tan later developed an affiliate company, Soho Industri Pharmasi, in 1951, which was followed by Parit Padang Global, a distribution company, in 1956.

In 2006, the founder’s son, Tan Eng Liang, combined the three companies into the Soho Group, with three divisions that produced and distributed pharmaceuticals and other consumer health products.

“Last year, we extended our business to distribute medical equipment,” Pitt said.

The company makes around 350 different products, and some of its most popular over-the-counter products treat diarrhea and sleeping disorders.

Last year, Soho Group Distribution accounted for 49 percent of the group’s total revenue, followed by Soho Group Pharma, with 39 percent, and Soho Group Consumer Health Divisions, which contributed 12 percent.

Soho’s name is a contraction of societas honorabilis, taken from the Latin for society of honorable people.