Mr David Klutse, the Managing Director, Intravenous Infusion PLC, said the operating profit after tax for the year was up four per cent to GH¢ 2.84 million compared to GH¢ 2.73 million in the previous year.

Mr Klutse speaking at the Company's Annual General Meeting in Accra said the reports shared with stakeholders indicated that they were firmly on track and delivering on their Initial Public Offer (IPO) commitments.

He said the Company has also identified six strategic priorities that they believed would drive their success.

"We are taking steps to build greater effectiveness and efficiency into how we work and in manufacturing, we are adjusting production capacity to match our evolving product mix," he added.

Mr Klutse said the progress, made in the year under review highlights the benefits of the strategic choices they had made in the Company over the last few years to build sustainable increased capacity.

"We expect the Company to make positive progress in the coming year as we are positioned to deliver strong returns to our valued shareholders," he added.

He said the external environment remained very challenging with significant competitive pressures from importers of finished Intravenous therapy (IV) products into the country, long delays by the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) in paying the hospital facilities in a timely manner.

However, he said "we believe we have placed the Company in a strong position to deal with these challenges. By keeping our focus, we are creating value for our shareholders."

Mr Isaac Osei, the Board Chairman, Intravenous Infusions PLC, said the Company declared a dividend of GH¢ 0.00384 per share, indicating that this was in line with the three-year forecast given at the IPO stage (2015) for the Company to return to paying dividend in three years.

In 2018, the Company strengthened its operational efficiencies to support their sales and profit growth to create sustainable value for their shareholders and other stakeholders.

He said these accomplishments have helped them to deliver another year of good performance with increased sales by 23.4 per cent on year and improved profit before tax by 8.8 per cent year on year.

The Board Chairman said: "we were able to improve our cash flow and core earnings per share with the objective of continuing to create value for our shareholders."

He said the Company was also collaborating with the relevant stakeholders in the new pricing policy to help ease the burden on the national purse while at the same time, supporting patient's access to quality healthcare products.

Mr Osei said the Company was committed to stringent quality standards in the manufacture of their products, adding that they appointed a Pharmacovigilance Officer as part of the Senior Management team to monitor the safety of their products in the market place.

He said the Company constantly sought ways to improve their corporate governance, pursue engagement with the many diverse stakeholder groups such as the shareholders, policy makers, customers and regulators as a whole.

He said the company, as part of its strategic plan intended to re-establish its presence in the West Africa sub region and increase contribution to total revenue to 5 per cent.

Mr Osei said the company planned to increase its turnover to from GH¢ 20.2 million to GH¢ 24 million, increase market share from 60 per cent to 65 percent, introduce six new products and improve its utilization from 40 per cent to 50 per cent.

"The company will cooperate with the government to address the issue of imported rigid IV bottles, ensure plant expansion to meet all regulatory requirements and address funding operational challenges of NHIS by government," he said.