New force in Pharmaceuticals

Cadila Pharmaceuticals Ethiopia Plc (CPEL), is the latest overseas venture of an Indian pharmaceutical giant which has a footprint in over 50 countries. The vast Ethiopian pharmaceuticals market has of late been attracting local and foreign investors and all indications are that the sector is booming exponentially.
I.A.Modi, Chairperson of Cadila Pharmaceuticals Limited (India) was available to be interviewed by Capital’s Tedla Desta. Excerpts follow;

Capital:-Tell us about your new venture?
I.A Modi-Well, I feel that it is always good whenever something new arrives. It may be in pharmaceuticals or in any other sector so I firmly believe that our new pharmaceuticals production plant will be supportive in many aspects.

Capital: - What are your long, medium and short term plans?
I.A Modi: - We have started with only 10 dosage forms so we will hardly be meeting the national and drugs requirement. However, we will see that if within one or two years, if our products are well received by the market and our installed capacity is fully utilized, we will expand production so that we meet domestic requirement and garner foreign exchange savings by stopping imports of certain products. New dosage forms will be introduced such as preventives, ointments, creams and inhalers, in stages, depending on how this plant succeeds here initially.

Capital- Describe to us the domestic pharmaceutical market as well as the export potentials.
I.A Modi- We are very much eager to export from here to all the COMESA countries and the surrounding regions. We plan to export at least 30 % of our production and the rest is slated for domestic consumption.

Capital- What are the major production lines at your plant?
I.A Modi- The major lines are tablets, capsules and liquids, with the dosage forms being anti-infective, anti-depressant, anti-TB and others

Capital- What is the degree of domestic input in your skilled work force?
I.A Modi- We have already conducted a dummy (test) production and everything we need is in place. I can assure you that the local workforce is very competent, cooperative and helpful. They are doing very good work and your pharmacy colleges are training capable graduates who are of high caliber.

Capital- What do you feel was the major constraint in the establishment of your venture and what possible obstacles if any do you foresee?
I.A Modi- We are going to request of the government in relation to the raw materials that must be imported. They can’t be manufactured  here and unfortunately, there is a regulation that stipulates that only Ethiopian Shipping Lines can be used to ferry our consignments from  India to Ethiopia. Due to this, for more than two months now our consignments have been laying in Bombay Airport.
We want to request of Ethiopian (airline) that they extend their service to Emdabatour, our home base.