Iceland's Actavis Group has made a buy-up offer on Croatia's generic pharmaceutical company Pliva, a sector peer of Hungary's Richter and Egis.

Healthcare giant Alliance UniChem pulled out a healthy set of full year earnings and is confident about future trading.

Chiesi Farmaceutici S.p.A. announced the opening of Chiesi Pharmaceuticals LLC, its new affiliate headquartered in Moscow, and the formation of a joint venture in The Netherlands.

The Russian pharmaceutical market may have grown 43% to $6.5 billion in 2005, the Remedium group of companies said in data presented at an Interfax press conference on Wednesday.

This year companies domiciled in the former Soviet Union have raised more than £1.5bn from share issues through the London Stock Exchange and the Alternative Investment Market. Last year, the figure was £45bn.