Government steps up saline production locally with private sector assistance
Sri Lanka has stepped up efforts to overcome the shortage in any eventuality of the fast depleting stock of saline in hospitals across the country encouraging the private sector to meet the local requirement of over 12 million 500 ml bottles annually.
While the State Ministry of Production Supplies and Regulations for Pharmaceuticals is making arrangements to import required quantity, at least two private sector firms have accelerated the ongoing process to begin local saline production at their factories to meet the emergency demand.
Laugfs Holdings Ltd is planning to launch operations at its Intravenous (IV) solution (saline) manufacturing plant located in the Koggala Export Processing Zone (EPZ) soon, a company official said.
The company had reached an agreement with the government to establish a saline manufacturing plant in 2014 with a buyback agreement with the state in 2019.
The company is also exploring the possibility of exporting its products to certain foreign markets including South African region.
The group has already invested Rs.2.5 billion in the US$ 30 million project, located on 4-acre land in Koggala, under its subsidiary Laugfs Life Sciences, which was set up to develop IV-related products.
Meanwhile Kelun Life Sciences (Pvt) Ltd’s BOI approved Sino –Sri Lanka joint venture project will be starting production of saline for foreign and local markets at its fully fledged plant using Artificial Intelligence within the next two months in the Kandy Industrial Park.
“The project will employ 110 workers. The investment value of the project is $12-75 million of which $9.5 will be foreign direct investment,” a BOI source said.
The production capacity of the plant is around 190 million 500 ml bottles per annum with a value of Rs.2.9 million and its local share is around 33 percent or one third of total production.
The company plans exporting earnings of $18 million annually, an official said adding that the product process has WHO certification.
It will also manufacture injectables to supply to the Health Ministry, helping reduce shortages in the country, resulting in freshly manufactured stocks and also contributing towards import substitution, he disclosed.
The government plans to manufacture 50 percent of the country’s requirement of pharmaceuticals locally within the next three years while the country imports 85 percent of its drug requirement at an annual cost of Rs.130 billion.
India spearheads almost half of Sri Lanka’s drug imports followed by Pakistan, US, Switzerland, France, Bangladesh and the UK.
Sri Lanka’s pharmaceutical market is expected to reach $787 million by 2022 with an increase in the country’s ageing population.