Hikma expands in Middle East & North Africa
pharmafile | April 15, 2010 | News story | Manufacturing and Production, Sales and Marketing | Hikma, em
UK-headquartered Hikma Pharmaceuticals has signed a flurry of deals that expand its position in the fast-growing Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.
The latest agreement sees Hikma acquire a 50% stake in Algerian company Al Dar Al Arabia Pharmaceutical Manufacturing from Jordanian pharmaceutical company Dar Al Dawa for $18.5 million.
The generic pharmaceutical company also sells generics in Europe and the USA, but is focusing on expanding into the MENA region, which is tipped to reach a value of $23.7 billion in 2014, according to Business Monitor International.
Algeria is the second-largest market in the MENA region, according to Hikma, which says recent regulatory changes in the country have encouraged local production of medicines in order to reduce the reliance on imported drugs.
Al Dar Al Arabia was established in 2005 as a joint venture between Arab Pharmaceutical Manufacturing (APM), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hikma, and Dar Al Dawa. It has built a 6,000 sq. m. manufacturing facility that has recently been constructed across approximately 21,000 sq. m. of land in an industrial zone in Algiers.
Once fully operational, the Al Dar Al Arabia plant will double Hikma’s manufacturing capacity in Algeria and will provide significant scope for further expansion of its business into other countries in the MENA region, said the company.
The transaction is conditional upon the satisfaction of various legal requirements and official procedures and is expected to close at the end of June 2010. It will be funded by existing cash resources.
Earlier this month, Hikma signed an agreement with Korean biotechnology company Celltrion to gain rights to a series of biosimilar products in the MENA region which if approved will be sold under Hikma’s own brand.
That deal came shortly after the firm increased its stake in a Tunisian pharmaceutical company, Industries Pharmaceutiques Ibn Al Baytar, to 66%.
Ibn Al Baytar and its subsidiary Medicef operate two manufacturing plants in Tunisia – one for general formulation and one for anti-infectives, and has a 3% share of the Tunisian pharmaceutical market, which grew by 15.6% in 2009 to reach a value of $655 million.
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