ASTANA – The Kazakh pharmaceutical industry increased production of the country’s most popular medications by 73.1 percent with production increasing 79.8 percent over 2016. Prices for pharmaceutical products in Kazakhstan have also increased 6.6 percent over the last 12 months.
The production increases are an attempt by the Kazakh pharmaceutical industry to replace imports with domestic production.
Among the high production areas were the Almaty region (52.8 percent of total domestic production), the South Kazakhstan region (18.3 percent) and Almaty (12.4 percent).
Such large companies as AbdiIbahim GlobalPharm, Kelun-KazPharm, Dolce, Zerde-Fito, Chimpharm, Nobel Almaty Pharmaceutical Factory, Aurora, Cheminnova Alimor Kazpharm, Rapid-Alimor Pharm Industries, Dosfarm have plants in the regions, energyprom.kz reports.
SANTO company, being a part of the international pharmaceutical group Polpharma (Poland), is implementing the largest investment project in the South Kazakhstan region to modernise the existing pharmaceutical production of Chimpharm in accordance with English Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) international standards. The Polish investor will invest $37 million in the plant.
The main objectives of the fourth stage of the investment programme of Polpharma international group for 2018-2022 are the development of the IT infrastructure, digitisation of the production process, the improvement and automation of the quality control and quality assurance system and the development of new medicines. The company is going to build a new laboratory as well as update existing infrastructure, equipment and logistics facilities.
Over the 11 months of 2017, 14.3 percent of antibiotics sold in Kazakhstan were produced domestically. However, domestic production of other pharmaceuticals reached 53.1 percent of the total Kazakh market.
Vitamins and their derivatives are not produced in Kazakhstan. Prices for imported vitamins increased 5.6 percent over 2016. Prices for hormonal drugs also rose 21.6 percent, analgesics 12.9 percent and gastric drugs 7.5 percent.
