GSK to bring pharma plant in Sri Lanka online
pharmafile | April 24, 2012 | News story | Manufacturing and Production |Â Â BMS, GSK. Sri-Lanka, manufacturing and productionÂ
GlaxoSmithKline is due to open a newly-built manufacturing facility in Sri Lanka this week that is said to be the first solid oral dose facility set up by a multinational firm in the country.
Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Industry and Commerce said that the plant in Moratuwa will have the capacity to produce 2.5 billion paracetamol tablets a year, and will boost the country’s domestic manufacturing sector and help stabilise prices.
It is the first facility in a newly-set up economic zone set up last year exclusively for pharmaceuticals production, and is part of a wider $11 million investment programme by GSK in its Sri Lankan operations. Earlier this month the company also announced a deal to acquire Sri Lankan rights to a number of products owned by Bristol-Myers Squibb.
Last September, the Sri Lankan government announced a programme aimed at expanding local production of medicines – currently carried out by just six domestic pharmaceutical manufacturers – and reducing reliance on imported medicines, according to national newspaper the Daily News.
Sri Lanka’s pharmaceutical market is growing at a rate of around 10% a year but is still small, estimated to be worth less than $700 million by 2015 because of low pricing and per capita spending on medicines, according to Business Monitor International.
The country has struggled to entice multinational drugmakers to set up facilities because of bureaucracy and widespread corruption, notes BMI in its latest report on Sri Lanka’s healthcare market. In its 2012 budget, the government included a provision for tax holidays for companies investing in pharmaceuticals production.
In December, Sri Lankan health minister Maithripala Sirisena unveiled a manufacturing programme designed to boost supplies of critical medicines.
To date, the Japan International Corporation Agency (JICA) and Sri Lanka’s state-owned State Pharmaceutical Manufacturing have signed up to meet demand for these medicines and boost local manufacturing capacity.
Phil Taylor
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