DAMMAM – The cost of conducting research on new medication stands at SR1.87 billion, which is higher than the capital of the biggest pharmaceutical factory in the Kingdom, said Ahmad Rabdi, chairman of the national committee of pharmaceutical industries at the Council of Saudi Chambers, Makkah daily reported. He added that the capital of the biggest factory does not exceed SR1.2 billion. The pharmaceutical industry in the Kingdom does not have the necessary platform for manufacturing new medications or developing the current ones, he said. Rabdi cited the absence of a unified pharmaceutical research center as the second challenge facing the industry. Pharmaceutical factories in advanced countries can make up $30 billion in profit every year. Five million dollars are allocated to developing and discovering new medications. Saudi pharmaceutical factories manufacture medications whose patent rights expired. There is nothing special about these factories; besides, they do not guarantee any form of medicine security for the country, he said. For his part, Dr. Is'haq Al-Hajri, deputy chairman of the committee, said there are 14 pharmaceutical factories manufacturing about 20 percent of local medications while in Arab countries this percentage reaches 50. Al-Hajri attributed such low percentage to the fact that local health institutions do not trust the quality of the medications manufactured by local factories although these medications are licensed and approved by the Saudi Food and Drug Authority (SFDA). “I don't understand why hospitals here don't trust locally-made medicines approved by the SFDA,” Dr. Al-Hajri said. He cited the example of a local factory that exports its medicines to the United States and which is visited every two years by an American committee to check the manufacturing processes. The medications are consumed by American citizens and are approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, he noted. Not having enough trust in local pharmaceutical factories can negatively affect the investment market as their owners will think twice before any plans of expansion. They will be reluctant to manufacture medications for cancer, asthma, etc. because the production process can cost huge amounts of money.
