GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

Amid grow­ing pub­lic de­bate over the state of the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal in­dus­try in T&T, Agos­ti­ni Group CEO Bar­ry Davis has pub­licly dis­missed al­le­ga­tions that the com­pa­ny holds a mo­nop­oly or con­trols an over­whelm­ing share of the lo­cal phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal dis­tri­b­u­tion mar­ket.

In re­view­ing the Group’s per­for­mance in 2025 at its an­nu­al meet­ing at the Hy­att Re­gency on Fri­day, Davis chal­lenged claims that Aven­ta Trinidad op­er­ates as a mar­ket-dom­i­nant mo­nop­oly, not­ing that more than 70 reg­is­tered dis­trib­u­tors cur­rent­ly sup­ply med­i­cines na­tion­wide.

"Fur­ther, it has been al­leged that Aven­ta has more than 70 per cent mar­ket share of the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal dis­tri­b­u­tion trade, we do not know where that num­ber comes from, or how it was cal­cu­lat­ed… and while we strong­ly dis­agree with the mar­ket share at­trib­uted to our com­pa­ny, what we can we say is that we are a large play­er in the mar­ket," he added.

Davis high­light­ed that phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal man­u­fac­tur­ers world­wide have im­ple­ment­ed in­creas­ing­ly strin­gent re­quire­ments for the han­dling and dis­tri­b­u­tion of med­ica­tions.

In re­sponse, Aven­ta Trinidad has made “sub­stan­tial” in­vest­ments in lo­gis­tics, in­fra­struc­ture and op­er­a­tional ca­pac­i­ty.

"Over the years, drug man­u­fac­tur­ers have con­tin­u­ous­ly in­tro­duced strin­gent re­quire­ments and new stan­dards for the han­dling and dis­tri­b­u­tion of their prod­ucts – and un­der­stand­ably so, giv­en the sen­si­tiv­i­ty and na­ture of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals. To re­main a provider of choice for sup­pli­ers, meet mar­ket de­mands and en­sure that cit­i­zens across Trinidad and To­ba­go have ac­cess to crit­i­cal and es­sen­tial med­ica­tions, Aven­ta Trinidad has sub­stan­tial­ly in­vest­ed in its op­er­a­tions and will con­tin­ue to do so" Davis said.

Ad­dress­ing con­cerns in the re­tail phar­ma­cy sec­tor, Davis al­so com­ment­ed on crit­i­cisms aimed at Su­per­Pharm, Aven­ta Trinidad’s re­tail phar­ma­cy chain.

He not­ed that Su­per­Pharm has been a “large re­tail play­er” for two decades, of­fer­ing con­ve­nience, com­pet­i­tive pric­ing and an ex­pand­ed prod­uct range.

"And while Su­per­Pharm con­tin­ues to be suc­cess­ful and grow its busi­ness, we are the num­ber two play­er in the re­tail phar­ma­cy mar­ket...In Trinidad and To­ba­go the play­ers with larg­er for­mat stores would be Pen­ny­wise, Su­per­Pharm, Star­lite, Kap­pa and a few oth­ers. The con­ve­nience of a wider va­ri­ety of prod­ucts and longer open­ing hours are some of the fac­tors that have fa­cil­i­tat­ed the growth of the larg­er phar­ma­cy chains," Davis stat­ed.

De­spite fac­ing one of the most chal­leng­ing op­er­at­ing en­vi­ron­ments in re­cent years—marked by per­sis­tent for­eign ex­change con­straints in T&T, glob­al sup­ply chain dis­rup­tions, ris­ing trade bar­ri­ers and es­ca­lat­ing op­er­at­ing costs across the Caribbean—Davis not­ed the Agos­ti­ni Group de­liv­ered a re­silient per­for­mance in 2025.

In­stead of slow­ing mo­men­tum, these pres­sures sharp­ened the group’s fo­cus on dis­ci­plined ex­e­cu­tion, tech­nol­o­gy-dri­ven ef­fi­cien­cy and strate­gic ex­pan­sion, en­abling Agos­ti­ni to not on­ly with­stand the head­winds but al­so ex­tend its track record of growth and strength­en its plat­form for an am­bi­tious 2026.

In re­view­ing the group’s per­for­mance in 2025, Davis said sales in­creased from $5.1 bil­lion to $5.4 bil­lion with growth com­ing from dis­ci­plined ex­e­cu­tion — broad­en­ing its prod­uct range whilst al­so ra­tio­nal­is­ing less prof­itable lines, ex­pand­ing in­to new mar­kets and in­creas­ing the num­ber of prin­ci­pals it rep­re­sents.

He said op­er­at­ing prof­it grew by 5.4 per cent to $511 mil­lion.

"If we step back and look at the last four years, our av­er­age an­nu­al growth rate was 10.7 per cent for rev­enue and 13.5 per cent for op­er­at­ing prof­it, pro­vid­ing a good sense of the con­sis­ten­cy and strength of the group’s per­for­mance over that pe­ri­od," he added.

Davis said across its busi­ness seg­ments, the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal and health care di­vi­sion—an­chored by Aven­ta and the Su­per­Pharm re­tail chain—de­liv­ered a stand­out year.

Aven­ta Bar­ba­dos and Aven­ta Dutch Caribbean led re­gion­al per­for­mance, and Su­per­Pharm con­tin­ued its long run of sta­ble, com­pet­i­tive re­sults. Its on­go­ing roll­out of new store for­mats, as well as the open­ing of the South Park lo­ca­tion, helped set the stage for fur­ther ex­pan­sion.

"The phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal and health­care group (rep­re­sent­ed by Aven­ta across the re­gion and Su­per­Pharm in Trinidad), had a very good year, with Aven­ta Bar­ba­dos and a full year of Aven­ta Dutch Caribbean lead­ing the way. Su­per­Pharm’s per­for­mance con­tin­ues to be con­sis­tent­ly strong, and their fo­cus on new for­mats, along with the re­cent open­ing of their South Park store pro­vides the foun­da­tion for fur­ther ex­pan­sion.

"Aca­do, our con­sumer prod­ucts joint ven­ture with God­dard En­ter­pris­es, con­tin­ued to grow its topline achiev­ing over $3 bil­lion in rev­enue for the first time, with its op­er­at­ing prof­it of $237 mil­lion be­ing in line with pri­or year. Aca­do Bar­ba­dos and Aca­do Guyana had strong years, both win­ning in their re­spec­tive cat­e­gories the group’s com­pa­ny of the year awards. Aca­do St Lu­cia on the oth­er hand had many chal­lenges dur­ing the year. But de­ci­sive ac­tion has been tak­en and con­tin­ues to be ex­e­cut­ed which has im­proved the per­for­mance, and the com­pa­ny is head­ing in the right di­rec­tion," Davis ex­plained.

The en­er­gy and in­dus­tri­al di­vi­sion how­ev­er, ex­pe­ri­enced a sev­en per cent rev­enue de­cline due to re­duced sec­tor ac­tiv­i­ty, yet still de­liv­ered in­creased op­er­at­ing prof­it of $47 mil­lion, dri­ven by the strong per­for­mance of Agos­ti­ni So­lu­tions Plus.

"Nev­er­the­less, op­er­at­ing prof­it in­creased from $41 mil­lion to $47 mil­lion. This was dri­ven by Agos­ti­ni So­lu­tions Plus’ pos­i­tive per­for­mance, re­sult­ing in that com­pa­ny al­so be­ing a re­cip­i­ent of the com­pa­ny of the year award in its cat­e­go­ry," Davis added.