778-Som-Lalit Institute Of Business Management - Gujarat ...

According to recent reports in The Gulf Times, Qatar will have 4 new drugs
producers by the ending of Q1 of 2013. The drugmakers will apparently import their
raw materials and manufacture tablets, syrups and injectables. It is predicted the
drug manufacturers aid restrain reliance on imports and lower prices of retail
medicines in the country due to increased local competition, according to Dr Aisha
al-Ansari of Supreme Council of Health Pharmacy and Drug Control
Department (SCH).
"Qatar‘s feature say that it will be reliant on pharmaceutical imports and as such, the
authorities have been moving in this direction to perk up the functioning of this
segment," the report supplemented.
In the month of February, the Qatar‘s Advisory Council permitted legislation that was
proposed by Qatar‘s Supreme Council of Health that permits the deregulation of
pharmaceutical imports to encourage free market competition in the sector.
"It is likely that this will cut down prices and intensify the accessibility of certain drugs
by means of the closing down of regime controls over the pricing of medicines and
an ending of the monopoly that a little number of importing agents have held in the
emirate," BMI added.
It supplemented that it supposed Qatar was a encouraging proposition for drug
manufacturers but the small on the whole market would persist to discourage
anything more than a sales and marketing presence from the large MNCs, which run
the most of their operations from the state‘s larger economies such as the UAE.
The GCC presently imports 90 percent of its pharmaceutical requirements and
domestic manufacturers need to step up to the challenge, Abdulaziz Bin Hamad Al-
Aqeel, the Secretary General of the Doha- based Gulf Organisation for Industrial
Consulting (GOIC) said last month.
He cautioned GCC states against continuous importing such a high percentage of
medicines and drugs.
In a speech to pharmaceutical industry delegates, he said there were "remarkable
opportunities" for home medicine producers. He also said that the pharmaceutical
sector in the GCC nations and Yemen exceeded $6bn and is expected to make
around $10bn by 2020.
Looking at the enormous potential of pharmaceutical business in Qatar, let us have a
look at the SWOT Analysis of pharmaceutical sector in Qatar.
Strengths:
1) Huge potential in pharmaceutical sector:
• The total market size of medical and health care sector in Qatar in 2011 was
approximately 90.3 thousand US Dollars.
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