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Eskayef to buy medicine licences in UK

Jasim Uddin Khan
Eskayef Bangladesh Ltd., a leading pharmaceutical company in the country, is going to buy several pharma product licences registered in the United Kingdom (UK) to produce those at the company's new plant for marketing the item to the lucrative European market.
The local company management expects a deal to be signed with a UK company next month, as negotiations to obtain product licences of Ciprofloxacin, Omeprazole and Ondensatron generic drugs are now at final stage.
"We have already opened an office in London and hired consultants to conduct the first licence procurement deal with the UK firm which I do not want to name right now. We expect that the agreement will be signed within July," AM Faruque, managing director of Eskayef, said.
Like Eskayef two other Bangladeshi companies,
Renata Limited and Square Pharmaceuticals, also initiated steps to buy product licences from the UK.
"This is the fastest way the local companies can easily join the global market. The main advantage we enjoy is the production cost. We can produce drug at almost fifty percent lesser cost than that any UK company can do,” Faruque said.
Many British drug firms own three to four licences of a single product, which they usually do not market now. So some of the pharma firms are eager to sell their licences to other firms, said Faruque explaining the reasons why the firms of that country wanted to sell their licences.
Any Bangladeshi company can produce and market any registered drug of UK, if it procures licence and has the MHRA (Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency) facility of its own. The Eskaef developed all facilities in its plant and it is hopeful of getting the MHRA approval soon.
The local pharma firm top official also pointed to the fact that many UK firms suspended production of some of their generic drugs on the plea that manufacture of those products would not be viable on the big companies' part because of a little demand for the products. This situation, Faruque said, might be considered as an advantage by the local pharmaceuticals.
Besides, the UK government policy is now encouraging
people to buy low cost medicine. This policy changes also woo Bangladeshi firms to procure UK pharma product licences.
Soon after signing an agreement, Eskaef will apply to the Bangladesh government to transfer the licence fee to the UK.
The present foreign exchange regulation of Bangladesh does not support transferring huge amount of money to other country but the procurement of a licence is an involvement of millions of taka, said S Kaiser Kabir, chief executive officer and managing director of Renata Limited.
He said during a meeting of the Better Business Forum he demanded lifting the restriction on transferring foreign currency abroad.
It takes minimum three to four years for any Bangladeshi company to get registration of any of their products in the UK, while it takes six months to one year to complete all the process of buying a licence of any UK drug firm, Kabir went on.
"The country's pharmaceutical industry is passing through a dramatic change in the trade, as many Indian drug firms have become global players by procuring product licence,” Kabir added.
Kabir said procurement of licence and transfer of the production site from UK to Bangladesh will add much value to pharma production.
The country earned US$32.97 million by exporting pharmaceutical products to around 67 countries during the first nine months of the current 2007-08 fiscal, which is 60 percent up over the same period in the previous fiscal.
Deputy General Manager (Marketing) of Square Pharma Mijanur Rahman said they initiated talks with a UK company to procure a product licence recently.
Square pharma is the first company that has obtained the MHRA certificate and has all facilities to produce and market products to the UK, he added.
Jasim@thedailystar.net