FHM Humayan Kabir

The country's leading drug manufacturer Acme Laboratories Ltd. would set up a specialised drug production unit with a target to export the products to the US and Europe, officials said Monday.

"We will construct a factory beside our existing unit particularly maintaining the international standard requirements of the United States and United Kingdom markets," deputy managing director of the drug company Afzalur Rahman Sinha told the FE.

He said: "As we expecting to export to the US and UK market, we will maintain the standard of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and British Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) in our proposed production unit."

Mr Sinha said they would invest Tk20 billion to install the specialised pharmaceutical drugs production unit, besides the existing production unit at Dhamrai in Dhaka.

The Standard Chartered Bank would provide Tk1.30 billion loan under a syndicated term loan arrangement with different banks and financial institution to the Acme Laboratories, a human, herbal and animal health medicine manufacturer.

The existing drug manufacturing unit of the country's leading conglomerate-Acme Group, is exporting pharmaceutical products to some Asian countries including Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and Myanmar in addition to meeting the local demand.

Among the medicines exported-- Antibiotic, Antihypertensive, Antiulcerant and vitamins are remarkable.

Mr. Sinha said: "We hope the construction works of our proposed plant would be complete by middle next year. We have set a target to go for production by June-July 2010."

The Acme Laboratories Ltd, with last year's turnover of nearly Tk4.0 billion, will be able to create some 1000 new jobs after setting up their specialised production unit.

"After staring production at our new plant, we hope our annual turnover will almost double to nearly Tk7.0 billion," Mr Sinha said.

Bangladesh's drug companies have been struggling to enter into different US, EU and African markets with their products for last few years.

Some leading domestic drug manufacturers including Square, Beximco and Eskayef have already got approval of the USFDA and UK's MHRA for marketing in those countries.

The local medicine manufacturers exported drugs worth US$45.67 million in the financial year 2008-09, maintaining over 6.0 per cent growth over the corresponding year, Export Promotion Bureau said.