Bangladesh pharmaceutical industry: now opening factories abroad.
Long ago is the time when foreign pharmaceutical companies came to Bangladesh to locally produce their medicine at a lower cost. Bangladesh is now doing the same, demonstrating the evolution of its industry and education capabilities.
NEWSBANGLADESH NEWS
The dynamism of Bangladesh’s pharmaceutical industry is increasingly noticeable, from a boom in exportation to Covid-19 treatment and vaccines research and production.
A new step is being made by Square Pharmaceuticals, the country industry’s leader, with the opening of a factory in Kenya.
The USD 75 million factory built on six hectare (first phase) will contribute to a reduction of about 40% of the cost of medication, help fight counterfeit market by bringing genuine locally produced drugs easily accessible and traceable and generate 700 direct jobs. The initial capacity of the factory will be over 2 billion tablets and capsules per year, mainly in malaria and diabetes drugs.
It will be the biggest pharmaceutical manufacturing plant in East and Central Africa and will help minimize Kenya’s dependency on pharmaceutical imports.
Importing over USD 600 million medicines annually, the technology and training to locally manufacture anti-malarial, anti-retroviral, anti-hypersensitive, anti-psychotic and anti-diabetic drugs will provide local chemist and engineers opportunities to fully exploit their talents.
Another success story is written by “JMI Syringes” who recently received a new order from UNICEF of 45 million AD (Auto Disable) syringes for Dubai’s Covid-19 vaccination program. Those syringes are designed to be automatically locked after a single use, forbidding the chance of reuse. JMI also exports to the United States, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Nepal.
To meet the increased demand, JMI is urgently investing to boost its production capacity by 33%.
They are also a perfect example of a successful foreign investment, as the company was launched twenty years ago by a joint venture of Bangladesh and Korean investors, later joined a UK manufacturer and finally having a Japanese buy the majority of the shares in 2019.
Other local companies like “Beacon Pharmaceuticals” who produce the Covid-19 generics of “Remdesivir” (the “Pandovir 100”) and “Favipira/Avigan” (the “Favipiravir”) and several anti-cancer drugs, saw its profits multiply by five in September 2021.
“Renata Ltd” is buying another two hectares to increase its production facilities, and “Beximco Pharmaceuticals” hasn’t been better after launching in December, a generic version of “Pfizer’s” Covid-19 “Paxlovid” treatment, being the first company in the world to do so.
Recently a Bangladeshi scientist, Professor Madhu S Malo, led an international study which discovered a new cause for diabetes, or Professor Dr Noman Khaled Chowdhury successfully performed a skull transplantation done in a six-hour operation on an heavily injured student, just seven years after the world’s first skull transplantation done in Houston, USA on a fifteen-hours operation ; increasing Bangladesh recognition in medicine.
https://www.the-star.co.ke/business/kenya/2021-12-07-bangladesh-pharmaceutical-enters-kenyan-market/
https://www.tbsnews.net/economy/jmi-supply-45cr-vaccine-syringes-dubai-377347
https://www.thedailystar.net/business/news/renata-buy-land-expand-rajendrapur-factory-2974016
https://www.tbsnews.net/bangladesh/health/bangladeshi-scientists-discover-new-cause-diabetes-389838
https://www.tbsnews.net/bangladesh/skull-transplantation-cmch-student-akib-successful-392882