Reuteri enters France with latest BioGaia deal

Swedish company BioGaia has announced the latest in a string of deals for its Reuteri probiotic, this time with a distribution agreement with Laboratoire Physcience in France and Belgium.

A flurry of deals over the past few months means that Reuteri tablets are sold in 14 countries worldwide.

"With this new agreement we will take a first step into the important French market" said company president Peter Rothschild.

The Reuteri tablets, to fortify the immune system, are sold by BioGaia to Physcience in their final consumer package, for sale in pharmacies.

Two clinical trials, one carried out on infants and another involving adults, indicated that people taking Reuteri supplements had less sick days than those on a placebo.

Last month BioGaia announced a new agreement with Forest Pharmaceuticals to sell Reuteri drops in another important European market, the UK and Ireland, and with Ferring Pharmaceuticals for Spain, Portugal, Czech Republic and Hungary.

In full year 2005 BioGaia reported operating result was -SEK20.7m (€2.2m), compared to -SEK28.8m (€3.07m) in full year 2004, and net sales increased by an impressive 47 per cent to SEK59.6m (€6.35m).

Although it has not yet crossed over into profitability, distribution deals have contributed to better results over the past 18 months, indicating that profitability may not be far off.

Sales from the Laboratoire Physcience deal are expected to start from the second half of 2006.