Written by DAVID MUWANGA

President Yoweri Museveni last week officially opened the first infusion plant in Uganda. The $20m plant is the largest in East Africa although there are two others manufacturing the same products in Kenya.

 
The plant is owned by Abacus Parenteral Drugs Limited (APDL) that won the investor of the year award for 2009. It manufactures life saving intravenous fluids, a first line treatment for people who are severely sick and are unable to take oral medicines. It is also the recommended treatment for people involved in accidents and those undergoing operations.

The intravenous fluids were previously imported from India.

DAVID MUWANGA interviewed the company's Managing Director Ramesh Babu and below are the excerpts

Qn: What is unique about your products?

 This is the first time that Uganda gets a $20 million plant that manufactures water for injection, eye, ear and nasal drops.

Parenteral drugs are in fluid form and are administered through the veins. They are prescribed in cases of trauma, stroke, loss of blood, dehydration, vomiting and general body weakness.

Qn: How do you plan to meet the country's demand for the products?

We know the annual total demand in the East African  region is 75 million bottles while Uganda's demand is about 10m bottles while Rwanda, DRC Burundi and Southern Sudan are about 30m bottles.

 It is estimated that the annual growth in demand of fluids is in the range of 10 to 15% annually.

But we are prepared to meet this demand because our capacity is twice Uganda's demand and we shall be exporting 50% of the products to Rwanda, Burundi, DR Congo and Southern Sudan.


Qn: What does your investment mean to the people and government of Uganda?

There will be reliable supply of the fluids and the prices will be competitive and economical compared to imported ones. We have increased supplies to the National Medical Stores and we are taking on all fresh graduates of Industrial Chemistry from Uganda's major universities.

During epidemics like cholera which is very common in Uganda whenever it rains, immediate assistance can be available since the product is produced locally.

When we introduced our products on the Ugandan market, a bottle of fluids was being sold at Sh1100. But we first sold our bottles at Sh810 and price has gone down to Sh720.

Manufacturing the fluids locally is going to enable government save about $5 million it has been spending on imports.

Qn: What challenges are you experiencing?

High costs of energy, high interest rates and the cost of our furnace oil of which we use 50,000 litres per month is very high whereas we are paying over Sh120 million for electricity.

Another challenge is that government should protect the local manufacturers by giving preferential rates. The government of India offers incentives to exporters and their products can flood our market at subsidized prices, this will kill the local industry.

The other is that the five governments of the East African Community (EAC) have not harmonized their laws on pharmaceutical registration.

It took us six months to get licenced here in Uganda but you have to go through the same processes in the other countries which takes time for an investor.

Government should support local investors by putting an annex in the Public Procurement and Disposal of Assets (PPDA) that gives preferential rates in order to encourage more investors in the sector.

Qn: Are you providing any corporate social responsibility?

Apart from employing 290 Ugandans so far, we are sponsoring 25 students every year to pursue a Bachelors Degree of Pharmaceutical studies at Makerere University and Mbarara University of Science and Technology.