Business | Investment
Julphar will invest Dh1b in setting up 11 factories
Shaikh Saud Bin Saqr Al Qasimi, Ras Al Khaimah Crown Prince and Deputy Ruler, said on Wednesday that the Gulf Pharmaceutical Industries (Julphar) will increase its capital and expand in the pharmaceutical industry by investing Dh1 billion by setting up 11 new factories, 7 of which will be in the UAE and the four others will be outside the country.
- By Nasouh Nazzal, Staff Reporter
- Published: 00:00 November 16, 2006
Ras Al Khaimah: Shaikh Saud Bin Saqr Al Qasimi, Ras Al Khaimah Crown Prince and Deputy Ruler, said on Wednesday that the Gulf Pharmaceutical Industries (Julphar) will increase its capital and expand in the pharmaceutical industry by investing Dh1 billion by setting up 11 new factories, 7 of which will be in the UAE and the four others will be outside the country.
The four outside factories will be based in Sudan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Morocco.
He was speaking at the opening of the fourth Arab European Pharma Seminar held at the RAK Hilton, with more than 10 major international pharmaceutical companies participating.
He added that this seminar was one of the best platforms for the pharmaceutical companies from the around the world to exchange ideas and to go forward. Shaikh Saud stressed that the real success was the ability to invest in "ourselves".
Julphar opened a training centre to train its staff on the pharmaceutical industries, and this centre is expected to be regional and include students from the entire region.
Abdul Razzaq Yousuf, CEO of Julphar said the requirements of registration have changed and bio-equivalence studies became a must for registration.
Not only the cost of bioequivalence studies is an obstacle, but also the availability of qualified centres and the guidelines to follow, specially in products with narrow therapeutic index and biosimilars.
Drugs that have narrow therapeutic index or classified as 'critical drugs' require by health authorities clinical studies to prove their efficacy and safety, i.e. two years or more after use in different markets.
This means that companies have to bear the cost of clinical studies - an average of $1 million - and at the same time lose two years of marketing those products, rather a huge cost for companies of the Middle East, he said.
He added that as manufacturing of patented medicine is not allowed by law and exports to the US and EU are not possible or at least not easy, the competition among Arab companies is becoming more intense.
He stressed that most of the multinationals start dumping prices in private as well as the tenders by lowering the price of old generic products as they introduce new drugs.
He said that suppliers of raw materials from East Asia are interested with the US and EU markets and the supplier to the Middle East are becoming less with the prices of the raw materials increase on yearly basis.
He said biotechnology products are strictly controlled by few companies in the world and their raw materials are also controlled by few companies.
He stressed that the US and Europe look at the Middle East countries as consuming markets and not as producing markets. He added that a negative perception in US and Europe made exports even more difficult.
Yousef said Pharma industries in the Arab world must invest in biotechnology. It is true that the same is rather costly and time consuming, yet without that, the Middle Eastern companies as generic companies would not survive the next generation.
He said it is important for the Middle Eastern pharmaceutical companies to be able to produce small batches to serve different markets and it is essential to have flexibility in packaging facilities to serve small markets that the multinationals do not look at.
He said in order to survive the impact of patent laws, WTO, and the latest requirements, which impose big financial burdens, the companies must work to export more products.
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