In times of the global corona pandemic, the fight against other diseases seems to have receded into the background a bit.

However, that doesn't mean it won't be continued.

For example, the Berlin company Medios, a supplier of specialty pharmaceuticals, is involved in the fight against rare or chronic diseases such as cancer, HIV and hepatitis.

Specialty pharmaceuticals are medicines for patients with rare or chronic diseases.

Their often personalized therapy is lengthy and costly due to the individual requirements.

Medicines can sometimes have unit prices of more than 1000 euros.

The combination of wholesaler and manufacturer makes Medios unique in the pharmaceutical industry.

Therefore, the Berliners should also have a lot to do after COVID-19.

Important takeover completed

In order to prepare for the future, Medios recently took over the NewCo Pharma Group.

Although investors did not like the capital increase carried out for this purpose, the takeover should hold some potential in the long term.

The successful completion of the acquisition was announced on January 11, 2022.

The takeover is accompanied by a significant expansion of Medios' market position in the segment of patient-specific therapies. This is particularly gratifying, since this division of Medios has already had particularly high margins in the past. According to Medios CEO Matthias Gärtner, the attractive business with patient-specific therapies for the treatment of rare and chronic diseases will even be tripled with the takeover of NewCo Pharma. Because Medios increases the number of partner pharmacies with the deal and achieves better regional coverage.

The NewCo Pharma Group is a national network with five regional manufacturing companies and wholesalers, with a regional focus on northern, western and southern Germany.

As a rule, patient-specific infusion solutions are manufactured on behalf of specialized pharmacies.

With the takeover, the partner network of Medios will grow from currently 550 to around 600 specialized pharmacies.

Ambitious goals

The higher number of manufacturing companies ensures, among other things, that pharmacies throughout Germany can be supplied with patient-specific infusion solutions much more quickly, which is ultimately also of great benefit to patients.

The aim for the year 2022 is to roughly triple production across the group to more than 300,000.

The most recent takeover has also ensured that Medios has set ambitious goals for sales and earnings.

In the 2022 financial year, the 1.5 billion euro sales mark is to be broken.

In addition, the EBITDA margin adjusted for special expenses for stock options, M&A activities and depreciation of the customer base is to be increased to well over 3 percent.

The Medios share could be interesting for investors with a focus on the pharmaceutical and biotech sector - even if the share has suffered severe setbacks in the meantime.

At least that is what recent history shows.

Volatile but steep move higher

After the so-called reverse IPO at the end of 2016, in which the operative business of the Medios Group was brought into an existing stock exchange shell, the Medios share started a volatile but steep upward movement.

The price increased more than fivefold in the following three and a half years and reached its previous high of 42 euros in May 2020.

This was followed by a sharp price slump until October 2020 to EUR 23.70.

After another steep increase until January 2021 to around 41 euros, the Medios share went into a sideways movement that continues to this day.

In terms of charts, things will get exciting again when the high from May of last year at EUR 42 is overcome.

In the medium term, the next milestone is 50 euros.

Despite the above-mentioned temporary price volatility, the balance of the past few years has been very positive overall.

Since the IPO in 2016, the secondary stock has gained an average of 37 percent per year, which means that an investment has almost quintupled.

A non-existent dividend yield and a very high price-earnings ratio (P/E) should be reasons for very few pharma-savvy investors not to take a closer look at the Berliner's shares.