Q: What is background of Martin Dow? Q: Is Martin Dow a National company or Multinational  Company? Q: Moving to Pakistan’s Pharma industry in general, why is innovation so rare? Q: Is India Involved in this kind of research? Q: What percentage of the products manufactured in Pakistan are export? Q: What needs to be done to boost export? Q: This will involve further investments? Q:Are you saying that at the moment pharmaceutical companies are manufacturing to a lower standard?

1. Martin Dow CEO
Javed Ghulam Muhammad
On why Pakistan needs a strong manufacturing base to compete successfully.
Interviewed
By
Maryam Ali Baig
Prepared by:
Fahad Farooq
Presented to:
Sir Asif Rasool

3. Q: What is background of Martin Dow?
› Martin Dow was founded in 1995; the company started with a small manufacturing
base in Lahore in 2000.
› The ‘Big Breakthrough’ came in 2010, with the acquisition of the manufacturing facility
of Roche Pharmaceuticals in Pakistan
› From a small base with a revenue of Rs 300 million, They acquired a company worth
three billion rupees.
› Then in 2016, They acquired the shareholding of Merck Germany.

4. Q: Is Martin Dow a National company or Multinational
Company?
› They started as a national company, but in 2017 They acquired two manufacturing
facilities in France.
› They do contract manufacturing for pharmaceuticals as well as nutraceutical products
for their clients in Europe.
› They have a proper manufacturing base in France and a French team running the two
plants.

5. Q: Moving to Pakistan’s Pharma industry in general, why is
innovation so rare?
› Pharmaceuticals are divided into innovator companies and branded generics.
› Innovators develop a new chemical entity which is then patented for 15 to 20 years.
› Martin Dow is into generics, so from a commercial point of view, their reach is much
wider in terms of distribution.
› Pakistan has a population of approximately 220 million people, yet the overall size of
the pharmaceutical market is just 3 billion dollars.
› Philippines, which has a population base of 100 million, the size of their pharmaceutical
industry is six billion dollars.

6. Q: Is India Involved in this kind of research?
› India is not doing the research required to develop a new chemical entity.
› When the patent of the innovator expires and the generic product can be developed,
› The challenge is to ensure the product is equivalent to the innovator in all aspects.
› Once a patent has expired in the US, the Indian companies will move in; 80% of
prescriptions move from innovators to generics.
› Pakistan has over 700 pharmaceutical companies and They are basically a generic
industry.

7. Q: What percentage of the products manufactured in
Pakistan are export?
› Our exports are worth 250 to 300 million dollars.
› that is the total 700 pharmaceutical companies Pakistan are generating.
› while potentially our exports can go up to five billion dollars.
› What we need is efficient production plants.
› We need products quality wise up to international standard.
› DRAP is actively working to maintain standard

8. Q: What needs to be done to boost export?
› The Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) is coming up with more strict standards.
› it is very important that they set the standards every company has to follow in order to
produce quality products.
› The Pakistan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association as well as the Pharma Bureau are
determined about the fact
› that we need to bring our quality to the level of international standards and export our
products.
› They need to upgrade their technical, their manufacturing facilities and their quality
systems.

9. Q: This will involve further investments?
› Yes, although I think that the only thing that is stopping the pharmaceutical companies is
the fact that prices in Pakistan are very low.
› Even compared to Bangladesh or India. If all the manufacturers are able to make a
reasonable return on their investments.
› they will invest in order to improve their standards to access a bigger market.

10. Q:Are you saying that at the moment pharmaceutical
companies are manufacturing to a lower standard?
› They are complying with the standards set by DRAP, but there are a few areas where
we could improve.
› For example, bioequivalence studies, which prove that a generic product is equivalent
to the innovator, are not a requirement in Pakistan.
› but they are the first requirement in order to export to Europe or the US.
› There has been a significant improvement in DRAP over the years.
› we cannot survive on trading because we need to cater to a population of 220 million
people.