1962 – 2005 Zentiva S.A. Bucharest – the largest manufacturer in the Romanian market The company's history dates back to 1962 when a drug manufacturing plant was established in Bucharest. The plant was part of a government-run system whose task was to supply drugs to the local pharmaceutical market. The company was later renamed to Bucharest Medicines Plant and then to Sicomed in 1990. Eight years later, in 1998, the company entered the Bucharest Stock Exchange and soon became one of the most traded companies.
The privatisation process the company went through was completed in 1999. A majority share was acquired by institutional investors, including the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and a number of investment funds. Once the privatisation was completed, the majority owners started an overall modernisation and optimisation, including both manufacturing and HR development processes. Sicomed thus started a period of consistent growth thanks to which the company became the largest pharmaceutical manufacturer in the market in terms of the volume of sold drug packages. In 2005 Sicomed was first company in Romania to receive an ISO 9001:2000 quality certificate from Lloyd's Register acknowledging the operating efficiency of the company's quality management system.
The process optimisation continued also in 2005. The company sold its division of large-scale parenteral drug forms and started concentrating on the production of solid drug forms and a small quantity of parenteral drugs.
In late 2005, Sicomed was acquired by the Zentiva group through one of the biggest transactions in the local market. The first six months of 2006 saw the integration of Zentiva's previous Romanian operations and Sicomed's existing operations under the new Zentiva brand. As a result, Zentiva became the leader of the Romanian generics market.
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