Baghdad – IA – Muhammad Al-Talbi
Today, Saturday, Adviser to the Prime Minister for Industry Affairs and Private Sector Development, Hamoudi Al-Lami, reviewed the mechanism for transferring pharmaceutical technology that is not produced in Iraq, while stressing that locally produced drugs will be as effective as foreign ones and will be sold for a quarter of their value.
Al-Lami said to the (INA): “The Prime Minister directed the transfer of pharmaceutical technology that is not produced in Iraq, and it must be through international companies governed by the controls of the Ministry of Health, and the company must be registered with the Ministry and have international certificates in order to allow the transfer of technology from them.” .
He added, “The transfer of technology takes place in three stages over a period of five years. The first stage begins with secondary packaging from the foreign company and continues for one or two years at most, with the provision of requirements, training of cadres, and preparation of supplies. Then we begin the manufacturing stage inside Iraq.”
Al-Lami continued, “After the end of five years as a maximum, the technology will be completely transferred, by owning the entire pharmaceutical file and manufacturing in Iraq,” warning that “the Ministry of Health does not allow tampering with the supply of a medicine and then packaging it inside and claiming that it is Iraqi, and applies strict procedures.”
Al-Lami stated, “The transfer of technology will bring foreign companies to Iraq as a first stage, and then we will enter the stage of establishing pharmaceutical factories for those major international companies in the country.”
He stressed, “The Prime Minister’s directives stressed that the Iraqi medicine must be of the best international specifications and that there be competition in price with the foreign medicine, meaning that the citizen will take the medicine manufactured locally at a subsidized price of up to a quarter of the foreign value, with the same effectiveness.”