Health drink supplier Nualtra’s prospects perk up on HSE listing

Nualtra, a nutritional drinks company backed by Digicel directors Leslie Buckley and Sean Corkery, believes it is on course for major growth this year after the Health Service Executive (HSE) named its products on guidelines issued to GPs for prescribing supplements to malnourished patients.

The company, which was set up in 2012, entered profitability for the first time last year as its sales rose 45 per cent to close to €10 million, on the back of strong growth in Ireland and the UK. With the HSE listing and possible expansion into European markets, its founder, Paul Gough, believes it will achieve "significant double-digit" sales growth again in 2018.

“We expect this to be a €20 million-a-year business by 2020,” said Mr Gough, a dietician who is also the son-in-law of Actavo chief executive Sean Corkery.

Nualtra sells a range of drinks that are mostly prescribed by doctors to adult patients suffering malnutrition, such as unwell elderly people or patients suffering from diseases such as cancer.

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Market research

Most of its sales come from the UK, although Mr Gough says it also had a share of about 20 per cent of the much smaller Irish market. He says the business was conducting market research on potential launches in the Spanish, French and German market for oral nutritional supplements (ONS).

It was also contemplating further expansion into a small number of eastern European and Baltic markets, he said.

He provided figures to suggest the HSE spends up to €14.7 million annually covering the cost of ONS products. Mr Gough says the State could save €6.5 million if all of that volume was switched to Nualtra products.

‘Big saving’

“Obviously, a 100 per cent switch isn’t going to happen. But even if we were to capture a medium-sized chunk of that spend, there would be a big saving for the HSE and a big boost for our business.”

Nualtra's entry to profitability was delayed, he said, by a marathon legal battle over several years with a UK rival, Aymes International, which accused it of trademark infringement.

In turn, the Irish business sued Aymes over allegations that it had tried to damage its business in the UK with “poison pen letters”.

All of the various legal proceedings were later settled.