Ambassador of India to Egypt, Sanjay Bhattacharyya, and Hany Mashaal, general manager for Egypt and Rest of Middle East at Sun Pharma, opened Ranbaxy’s new factory, located in the 6th of October City, on Monday.
Ranbaxy is affiliated with Sun Pharma, a pharmaceutical company. Sun Pharma is the number one generic pharmaceutical company in India and the fifth-largest worldwide. It is present in more than 150 countries and its factories amount to more than 45 worldwide. It started establishing its factory in Egypt in 2012, and the production phase started a month ago.
Regarding this, Mashaal said, “our work was not suspended from 2012 until 2017, as this is the normal process time for constructing any pharmaceutical factory,” explaining that in order to manufacture medicines, accurate investigations and permissions from the Ministry of Health and Population are required, since the industry is related to the health of the individual.
He also highlighted that the price of the medicine is not only dependent on raw material prices, but also on the investigations necessary to be able to produce them—all of which affect the price.
The Egyptian market lately witnessed many challenges, including the EGP’s flotation and inflation. 95% of the production of pharmaceutical products in Egypt depends on imported materials.
The pound’s flotation was an economic barrier that Sun Pharma was confronted with in Egypt, but they did not stop its activities. Mashaal commented that they did not take any decision to stop their investments in Egypt; on the contrary, they doubled their efforts to overcome this obstacle. “Despite several barriers and many political and economic issues, we decided to proceed with the investment due to our belief in the potential of the Egyptian market.”
“Our investments amount to more than $12m,” said Mashaal, with the factory starting with manufacturing four kinds of medicine. He added that in four or five years it could be producing 14 or 15 kinds of medicines.
Meanwhile, the ambassador stated that, “with a prestigious international portfolio, the Indian company of Sun Pharma is one of the largest companies worldwide in the pharmaceutical field. This is why I am happy to see the company’s flag flying alongside the Egyptian and Indian ones.” He added that he is glad that cooperation between both countries is seeing constant progress.
Photos by Mohamed Mostafa
