The Bangladesh government will soon allow contract manufacturing in the pharmaceutical industry, which was hitherto restricted by law in the country. As per the Drug Policy 1982, the contract manufacturing was not allowed in the country as the government wanted drug manufacturers to have own facility with individual licenses to market the products locally. The government notification to this effect is expected at any moment as the parliament has already given its consent to the proposal.

However the country's current pharmaceutical industry situation due to acute import dependence for bulk drugs and also the emerging TRIPS regime in India and China has forced the government to open up the industry for foreign bulk drug companies on their own and also to allow local facilities to undertaking contracting manufacturing for foreign players.

Speaking to Pharmabiz.com in Dhaka, the Bangladesh Health Minister, Dr Khandekar Mosharaff Hossain, said that the government has already made up its mind to welcome all steps to build up bulk drug manufacturing capability locally. The current initiative includes allowing contract manufacturing in the existing and newly coming up facilities owned by the domestic companies and encouraging foreign companies to come and invest in the country in the area of bulk drugs, he said.

According to S M Shafiuzzaman, president, Bangladesh Association of Pharmaceutical Industries (BAPI), had proposed to the government earlier that since the local companies who have large manufacturing facilities those are complied with WHO and other international quality requirements can very well undertake contract manufacturing, the Law should permit the same for not only utilizing the extra capacity in the local facilities but also to bring new technology to the country in collaboration with foreign companies to serve the local market for bulk drugs.

"The government is all set to announce its policy amendments to open up the market. With this move, the Bangladesh market would benefit with local sourcing of bulk drugs and the foreign companies coming forward to take up this opportunity will be benefited with not only Bangladesh market reach but also with the Least Developed Country status of the country till 2016 to export their products to other LDC countries," Shafiuzzaman said.

At present, the country has around 200 pharmaceutical companies of which majority are pure formulation companies with a total sales turnover of Tk 2000 crore. However, the local companies like Square Pharmaceuticals, Beximco and multinationals such as GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis and Aventis have got larger manufacturing facilities for both APIs and formulations.