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Export of pharmaceutical products and earning foreign currency from the same have been of quite national importance. A healthy export portfolio is the surest way of ensuring economic development. The policymakers need to look at increasing export incrementally. The measures undertaken to ensure a healthy growth of export would automatically lead to product development, increase in GDP, internal investment and survival in competition with other manufacturers of foreign origin and last but not least a healthy growth in employment. This scribe has repeatedly focused on pharmaceuticals as a potential source of ever increasing export leading to intake of foreign currency and increase in employment, gaining of technical expertise in research and development and many other benefits. Therefore, when we talk about export potential in Bangladesh, we have to look at the pharmaceuticals sector and see if the sector has performed as hoped.
The companies exporting pharmaceutical products include Square, Aristopharma, Opsonin, Acme, Beximco and a handful of other companies but the number would not be significant at all. Only three to four companies have dedicated teams working toward international trade and export. Discussions with two executives working in the department of international trade was enlightening but not encouraging. They are clearly not happy at the slow progress in export from a sector that could transform itself as a major foreign currency earner.
Developing countries including, Bangladesh and India, are allowed to copy the more expensive brand of drugs produced in developed countries under an arrangement with the world trade bodies and this would be allowed until 2016. This has resulted in an opportunity for the manufacturers to produce drugs that would be normally very expensive. These cheap copies can be exported to countries that are ready to import good quality cheaper versions of otherwise expensive drugs. The government understood the importance of the pharmaceutical sector and granted it the status of being a thrust sector. There are some difficulties that the pharmaceutical sector faces and the demands to alleviate those problems have been given to the government. Chief amongst the demand is the creation of an API (Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient) park in which pharmaceutical companies would be given facilities needed to carry on uninterrupted production and manufacturing, loosening some import bottlenecks, some regulatory difficulties regarding foreign exchange availability for travel and trade related to trade promotion by the pharmaceutical companies etc. Bangladesh Association of Pharmaceutical Companies (BAPI) has lobbied and is hopeful of getting its demands met.
Pharmaceutical companies earn approximately $10 to 15 million per year. According to two executives working in the international trade department of pharmaceutical companies, the performance of companies in tapping export potential is totally unsatisfactory. The questions to be asked according to the executives are: how many companies have dedicated people exclusively for expanding export? Can the country hope for large-scale foreign currency intake from this sector when the entrepreneurs are not at all serious? The strategy for export revolves around making periodical trips to potential market sources identifying potential partners, mutual visits to ensure quality and other details involved in limited export activities in only the handful of countries. The pharmaceutical companies should come up with a more detailed strategy, increase liaison with the banking community to secure more investment and increase overseas activities including opening permanent offices in identified cities that would work like marketing operation centers presumably like the offices opened by the shipping companies Singapore.
There should be more investment to increase R&D (Research and Development) activities in the pharmaceutical sector. Bangladesh has no research facilities for "new molecule synthesis" meaning no new drugs could be produced in Bangladesh simply because the pharmaceutical companies do not think so far ahead. The laboratories do research and development work and tinker with molecules only to "formulate product development work" meaning only copying of existing drugs. There has been some progress and some impressive breakthroughs in raw material related work where the scientist has shown excellence and competence.
The pharmaceutical industry should strive to become a fully functional modern and competitive sector that would not only produce copied drugs but also become so developed that Bangladesh can become an innovator and producer of new drugs that would one day become items in the shelves in developed countries. That should be the extent of the dream. The reality happens to be similar to the ready-made garments (RMG) sector. Just like the abolition of the quota system, Pharmaceutical sector would face abrogation of the right to copy expensive drugs after 2016. We should be ready to produce our own drugs and compete effectively, by exporting drugs already being produced plus the newer ones the copyright of which Bangladesh hold from the start. Government of Bangladesh should create a especial nexus between the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) and the Commercial Councilors stationed in various Bangladesh missions abroad so that the pharmaceutical companies get essential information like names and addresses and bonafide credentials of the available agents and partners in potential countries to stop spending of foreign currencies on foreign trips. This is very much one of the suggestions of the pharmaceutical companies. In the coming months, the pharmaceutical companies would come of age and start exporting large amount earning more. We hope that the government would provide all systemic help and incentive to the pharmaceutical companies in 2005 so that we can see potential of this noble sector come true to the fullest.
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