What is the Saudi Vision 2030?
Dr Faisal Bin Dail: Adopted as a blueprint to diversify the economy in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Vision 2030 is a detailed plan that touches on many areas within the market: tourism, the development of selfsustainable cities, renewable energy and privatisation. In its desire to harness local technologies the plan signifies a bold new step for the pharmaceutical industry.
How important is Saudi Arabia to international pharmaceuticals?
Currently the pharmaceutical market of MENA is small compared with other markets, roughly contributing 3%. However, it is an emerging market, especially with estimates predicting 5-6% growth reaching $60 billion by 2025. Saudi Arabia is the biggest contributor in the region in terms of value.
The Saudi Vision 2030 places more emphasis on private partnerships, providing a growth avenue for global companies to invest and do business in the region, whether that involves pharmaceutical products, technology transfers or healthcare services. Moreover, due to stringent regulatory bodies, companies can be assured that products produced within the region will be of a high standard.
The future holds a lot of promise for pharmaceutical companies hoping to tap into the Saudi market, both from a consumer and sourcing point of view. Saudi Arabia can become a logistics and sourcing hub for the global pharmaceutical markets.
How does AJA Pharma foster collaboration between local and international companies?
AJA Pharma has set up a state-of-the-art manufacturing plant, offering integrated pharmaceutical services to both global companies in Saudi Arabia and to companies that are looking to enter the local market. The company has an in-depth knowledge of regulatory issues, technology transfers, manufacturing, and can also assist with marketing and sales. Our aim is to use our in-depth local knowledge to foster influential longterm partnerships.
What are the advantages of manufacturing in Saudi Arabia?
Manufacturing here blends high industrial standards with a competitive cost structure. Moreover, due to Vision 2030, locally manufactured products are encouraged by our national regulatory bodies.
Could you outline the upcoming regulations favouring locally manufactured products?
Localisation is favoured to ensure availability of the essential medicines in the country without any disruption. Therefore, while regulators ensure the quality of products, there is a focus by government and private healthcare establishments to purchase more locally manufactured products.
What are the advantages of manufacturing products in Hail?
AJA Pharma chose Hail for its manufacturing plant for logistical reasons. Due to its central location, it connects major cities in Saudi Arabia. It also has a university with a pharmacy college that provides a consistent stream of wellqualified staff members.
What are the technical capabilities of the AJA pharmaceutical plant?
AJA Pharma is a platform for quality and excellence, and the plant is state of the art with high GMP standards. We offer finished formulations as oral solids, semi solids and liquids in non-sterile area, and lyophilised and sterile liquid injections under isolation technology in the sterile area. Our warehouse adheres to the modern supply chain concepts of storage, dispensing and dispatch. The packaging facility is automated with serialisation and aggregation systems.
We strive for high-quality operations with controls in place to ensure our methods are safe and reliable. In a short span of time AJA has attracted some well-known global companies to manufacture their products.
How is the company looking to expand in the future?
We are looking to expand geographically, as well as industrially, adding more production lines. The aim is to make our manufacturing facility a hub for safe and reliable pharma products as well as making Saudi Arabia synonymous with high-quality pharma. We also want to expand our offering by adding new dosage forms, new therapies and technologies to cure patients. Ultimately, we want Saudi Arabia to become a key destination for manufacturing finished form products supplied to western markets in both the US and Europe.
