Polisano, one of the largest private healthcare services group in Romania, named three new managers in key positions for the companies in the group. The main objectives for the new managers are to develop the group’s main business lines: the health clinics, the pharmaceutical manufacturing and the drug store chain, the group announced.

Ciprian Ciobanu, the former development manager of Medlife, the largest private health clinics operator in Romania, will take on the same position within Clinica Polisano, the company which operates several laboratories, clinics and hospitals in Bucuresti, Sibiu and Miercurea Ciuc. Ciobanu is an economist and has worked for 13 years for Medlife, helping it develop the largest private health clinics network in Romania.

Clinica Polisano also got a new general manager in December, Celestin Constantin, the former economic director of the Saint Pantelimon Emergency Hospital in Bucharest. Clinica Polisano also owns the European Polisano Hospital in Sibiu, a EUR 30 million investment. The company's new goal is to open four new radiotherapy centers in which it will invest EUR 20 million.

Polisano’s drug factory - Polipharma Industries, one of the largest in Romania, also has a new general manager, Sorin Baciu, a doctor from Targu Mures, who has worked for 15 years as manager in multinationals such as Pfizer, Schering Plough, MSD and Amgen. Baciu’s first objective is to start the production lines for oncology drugs by the end of March and to find new export markets for the factory. Polisano has invested EUR 60 million in this factory.

Polisano also brought a new manager for its drug store chain, Sibpharmamed, which operates a network of 67 pharmacies branded “Reteta” (The Prescription). Mirela Elena Jumanca, the new general manager, has 12 years of experience in pharmaceutical distribution, having worked for Montero and for the “Dona” drug store chain. Her immediate objective is to rebrand the drug store chain as “Farmaciile Polisano” (Polisano Drug Stores) and to look for new acquisitions. The group plans to buy 100 new drug stores by 2017 and to pass 200 units.

The Polisano group is the largest integrated healthcare services and pharmaceutical group in Romania. It ended 2014 with a turnover of almost EUR 400 million and 2,000 employees.

The group is controlled by the heirs of the late doctor Ilie Vonica from Sibiu, who founded the group in 1993. Ilie Vonica died in June 2014 after an alleged suicide attempt.

After Vonica’s death, Remus Borza, a lawyer specialised in business restructuring, was named president of the board of Polisano group. Borza is also the judicial administrator for state-owned electricity producer Hidroelectrica and for the Asmita Gardens residential project in Bucharest.

Andrei Chirileasa, andrei@romania-insider.com