Recently, Bangladesh has made an outstanding progress in production and distribution of pharmaceuticals in international market. Official statistics confirm that the market size of the pharmaceutical industry has increased from Tk 138.81 billion ($1.78 billion) in 2013 to Tk 154.62 billion ($1.99 billion) in 2014, respectively with a growth rate of 11.4 per cent and 11.9 per cent. Simultaneously, this radical development will enhance the global reputation of Bangladesh and secure the public optimism about the quality of Bangladeshi pharmaceuticals.
Out of a market list of 258 licensed pharmaceuticals, the top 30 generate almost 80 per cent of the profits earned by the country's pharmaceutical industry. The top 50 companies dominate 98 per cent of the pharmaceutical market in Bangladesh, with almost $2 billion worth of sales. It should be appreciated that 97 per cent of the local market demand for Bangladeshi pharmaceutical products have been fulfilled while the pharmaceutical industry of Bangladesh is exporting its products to 87 countries - including both strictly-regulated markets like the EU or the United States of America, and markets with soft regulations like Vietnam or Singapore along with 49 least-developed countries in Africa and the Asia-Pacific region.
According to a report by the Development Research Associates (DRA) in Bangladesh, Tk 3.27 billion worth of pharmaceuticals were exported by 47 companies in 2010. This has been similarly followed until 2013, when negative changes were observed in the pharmaceutical exports. Respectively, Tk 4.21 billion and Tk 5.36 billion worth of pharmaceuticals were exported in 2011 and 2012 with successive growth rates of 29 per cent and 28 per cent. However, 42 companies exported Tk 6.19 billion worth of pharmaceuticals in 2013 and 38 companies earned Tk 73.3 billion from exports in 2014 with respective growth rates of 15 per cent and 19 per cent.
The country has manufactured 1,268 generic drugs for 26,813 registered brands in different forms of dosages and strengths. The government controls the price of 117 generic drugs in specified dosage forms along with imported medicines and all the Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (API) produced in Bangladesh. Additionally, some companies have even started to produce anti-cancer and anti-retroviral drugs, previously being imported from abroad.
The greatest challenge for the pharmaceutical industry will be at the end of patent-free regime in 2016, when local pharmaceutical companies are supposed to cease the production, distribution and sale of medicines that are considered intellectual properties of a different country. Avant-garde manufacturers need to adapt their product portfolio or suffer a pointed drop in sales. However, the global 'patent cliff' may mitigate this a bit if Bangladesh simply could develop reverse engineering mechanism like India or China along with the recognised bio-equivalent test laboratories inside the country.
Meanwhile, implementation of the Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of the Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), authorised by the World Health Organisation (WHO), has been haunting the global pharmaceutical business for many years. Twenty specific drugs -- including Pfizer's cholesterol-lowering atorvastatin Lipitor, blockbuster blood thinner Plavix produced by Bristol-Myers Sanofi, atypical antipsychotic Zyprexa produced by Eli Lilly and Takeda's diabetes medication Actos - are likely to become generic drugs in the near future.
Annually, the best-selling pharmaceutical products of the world, with nearly $255 billion in global sales between 2011 and 2016, are set to go off patent - revealed by a recent report of the London-based research firm EvaluatePharma. Once the blockbusters lose their patent protection, cheaper generics are expected to decimate as much as 90 per cent of the sales of innovator companies.
After the implementation of TRIPS by the low or lower-middle income countries, both consumers and manufacturers of Bangladeshi pharmaceuticals along with the government could gain from the substantial slashes in costs as we are dependent on APIs imported from India and China.
Leading pharmaceutical companies should look forward to the utilisation of newer tools and strategies for filling the gap instead of relying on traditional patent blockbuster models. All the players in the industry should embrace the generic market model as a vital part of the entire pharmaceutical lifecycle, obviously in compliance with the economy of a lower-middle income country like Bangladesh.
The writer is a marketing executive.
wahidur707@gmail.com
