Bial – a success story built on innovation and specialisation
The Portuguese pharmaceutical company Bial, which last year celebrated its centenary, is a household name in Portugal and well known in the field of specialised epilepsy and Parkinson’s treatment overseas.
The firm, now in the fourth generation of the Portela family, is today run by the great-grandson of its founder Álvaro Portela, António Portela, who has ambitious plans to take it to new heights by specialising in developing drugs for rare diseases.
The current CEO gave an enlightening talk about the company to the British-Portuguese Chamber of Commerce (BPCC) last week at a Lisbon hotel.
It all started in a small downtown Porto chemist store in 1924 when Álvaro Portela decided to build a laboratory over the chemist where he worked.
The son of a grocer, he became a self-made man thanks to developing a patent cough medicine called Benzo-Diacol.
The company still produces a variant today called Dacol, although in days gone by with laxer legislation one wonders what the ingredients were in that first cough mixture, and if they would have been allowed today!
A man of the Roaring 20s, Álvaro was, by all accounts, somewhat of a maverick who liked to race his open-top sports car through the streets of Porto at all hours.
The entrepreneur opened shop at 6.30 am each morning to collect prescriptions from patients who travelled from the suburbs of the city to the chemist shop. The industrial laboratory got its name from the ‘Al’ from Álvaro and ‘Al’ from his boss Senhor Almeida, hence BIAL – ‘Two-‘AL’s’.
António never knew his grandfather António Emílio Portela who took over from his father Álvaro Portela in 1962 who then became president of Bial.
He only held the helm at the company for 10 years and died in 1972. Nevertheless, he is credited with modernising the packaging of the medicines produced under licence and further industrialised their production and manufacturing in Portugal.
He also must have been a ‘chip off the old block’ since in the 1950s he was one of the most well-known racing drivers on the Portuguese circuit having won innumerable cups and trophies.
A fight for survival
But the main transformation of the company was over the past 30 years, under António’s father Luís Portela, based on innovation and research and development, and internationalisation, beginning at the close of the 1980s and start of the 1990s.
“This effort from my father, who trained to be a doctor and researcher but had no experience managing companies, was because he realised that if Bial didn’t innovate and create value from its products, then the company’s future would be in doubt and could even fail as many companies have in the sector over the past three decades”, he said.
“The company has survived through the Great Depression, two world wars and various pandemics with many highs and lows throughout that period, some of which were very difficult for Bial, and despite this today we are is in the best state we’ve ever been in”, reflects António.
It wasn’t always like that. In 2009 Bial turned over less than half of its business turnover that it does today and this growth has been down to two drugs, Zebinix and Ongentys that represent 55% of that turnover.
Although big in Portugal, its international sales were modest with two commercially successful licences to produce the antibiotic Clavamox and the topical anti-inflammatory Reumon Gel.
Bial went in for specialisation, focusing on neurological illnesses and Parkinson’s disease with an annual investment in research and development of €58 million or 20% of its annual turnover since 2007.
And sales in international markets, in around 50 countries, today represent 75% of the company’s turnover, which in 2023 had reached €340 million.
With products in 50 countries, Bial currently has production and R&D centres in Portugal – its headquarters are spread out on a 24-hectare site in Trofa, near Porto and Braga – and subsidiaries in Spain, Germany, the UK, Italy, Switzerland, and the US.
Expanding to the US
During the Covid-19 pandemic, Bial set up a subsidiary in the United States, Bial Biotech, near Boston from an existing company from which it purchased the world rights to research programmes into Parkinson’s.
The goal was to extend its pipeline of projects under development in its specialised area with an estimated €100 million investment.
Also in the United States, Bial signed an exclusive 10-year licensing agreement with Sumitomo Pharma to sell a medicine for Parkinson’s in Europe. BIAL has high hopes that this drug will be part of its top 3 products by the end of this decade.
While in the US and Europe Bial is focused on neurological diseases, in Portugal and Spain its diversified portfolio also covers cardio-metabolic, respiratory and musculoskeletal diseases, women’s health and maternity care.
In the emergent markets of Africa and Latin America its products cover neurological diseases, maternity care, infectious diseases and respiratory illnesses.
A champion swimmer
Prior to joining the company, António had cut his teeth not in his father’s company but elsewhere, in London where he worked for the multinational Roche where he was as a market analyst and product manager for Hepatitis C medicines.
Interestingly enough, in his younger days he was a great sportsman and was a top-level competition swimmer for FC Porto, quite used to swimming 70 km a week!
This dedication and a lot of hard training made António the absolute national champion in the 100 metres freestyle, and it was only by a cat’s whisker that he missed being selected for the Olympic Games in Atlanta in 1996.
However, the company he fronts is about to lose a patent in the United States which will result in a fall in revenues but nevertheless it still has 75% of its turnover overseas.
“When I became CEO the numbers were the opposite with 20% overseas and 80% in Portugal”, he said, adding that the situation is now the other way around and was the result of research and focusing on international growth.
“We realised that we would only continue to grow if we could develop more innovative products”, said António Portela who has been at the helm of the company since 2011.
Innovation and added value
It was though a mix of innovation and value added that the company succeeded in selling its drugs in Europe, the US and Japan. “We could only compete against other companies if we could offer a product that had a higher value added and if doctors recognised that they were better medicines.”
However, Bial is one of only 38 companies in Europe that is involved in innovation in the pharmaceutical industry and is one of the smallest.
Back in the 1990s the company specialised in neurosciences and cardiovascular diseases. But around five years ago the company changed its strategy with a road map for the next 10-15 years.
“We realized that we had much more success in neurosciences than we had in cardiovascular which we didn’t manage to bring to market”, he recalled.
The result was the epilepsy drug Zebnix which was 15 years in development before being launched on the market in 2009 after the company had plowed €400 million into research, development, production and marketing.
This drug was followed by Ongentys in 2016 that slows the progression of Parkinson’s and also required a huge investment.
Focusing on rare diseases
António Portela points out that such investments are heavy for a company like Bial, which while considered large in Portugal, is seen as a SME in the pharmaceutical world overseas.
Focusing on rare diseases, António said there are currently 11,000 affecting 300 million people around the world of which only 5% have any kind of treatment, and these rare illnesses can be found in all areas of medicine.
“One-third of those who born with a rare disease have a life expectancy of just five years and we feel that we have the knowledge and resources to be able to work in these areas and we have two projects that involve rare types of epilepsy,” António explained.
In terms of employees – the company employs around 900 people – around 90% have further education and only one person doesn’t have secondary level education. Bial is also the company which has among the most employees with doctorates in Portugal. (12%).
One-third of its employees work in Europe and the United States and seven percent are spread out in developing countries.
A new drug for Parkinson’s
At present Bial’s R&D department is working on a new drug for Parkinson’s that is currently undergoing clinical trials that should be completed next year.
If it passes these trials successfully in 2026, it will help treat around 10 million people worldwide who suffer for this Parkinson’s sub-type.
This new drug, for now called BIA28, is aimed at patients with the sub-type called GBA-1 and is the result of a genetic mutation and usually affects sufferers around the ages of 55-60.
The success of this new drug is particularly important for the company given that it is losing a patent in the US.
Bial has also developed several partnerships and licensing agreements with other companies over the years and despite the threats from Donald Trump to slap tariffs on imported goods, including medicines, António Portela is not overly worried that the company will lose out.
“If you look at the last few years there have been no measures that have led us to believe that there will be any big changes for now,” reassured António Portela.
Bial also has licenses for its drugs, namely for those markets in which it doesn’t have a presence, in some European countries, the US and Canada, Japan, China, Australia, and Korea where it has a large network of commercial partnerships.
However, in terms of neurosciences, the company has a large presence in Europe but also a smaller presence through partners in Africa and Latin America.
Highlighting several focus areas, António Portela defined innovation and strengthening its market position in Europe, but admitted that it was difficult to break into areas such as Alzheimer’s and multiple sclerosis, instead “we’re much closer to illnesses such as epilepsy, Parkinson’s and ones that affect motor skills”, he concluded.
Text and Photo: Chris Graeme
Picture: L-R: Chris Barton, CEO BPCC, Rui Almeida – BPCC Chair of the Board of Directors, Bial – António Portela, CEO, and Paulo Azevedo, Director, German-Portuguese Chamber of Commerce & Industry (AHK)
