What others can study from Bangladesh on building cancer drugs available
When it comes to making cancer drugs available, Bangladesh is the perfect role model for a fairytale turnaround.
Just six years ago lots of the lifesaving medications needed to be imported, posing risks of unavailability, large costs and price fluctuations.
Now regional pharmaceuticals not merely meet 80 per cent of the country's demand but also export to at least 140 countries, starting off with limited level shipments in 2015.
So much to ensure that cancer drugs take into account nearly half of most pharmaceutical items being exported.
To put things into perspective, Bangladesh exported cancer drugs worth over Tk 500 crore this past year, while shipment of other medications hit around Tk 656 crore.
Meanwhile local cancer drug sales amounted to about Tk 600 crore. Demand keeps growing by 15 per cent on an average each year, according to the manufacturers.
Along with typical chemotherapy drugs, local pharmaceutical companies manufacture hottest oncology goods such as monoclonal antibodies, oral targeted therapies and liposomal technology goods.
They also manufacture many of the supportive drugs necessary for cancer treatment such as for example zoledronic acid, filgrastim and pegfilgrastim injection.
And all it took was meticulous focus on quality and plan support.
In the past a decade, pharmaceutical companies such as for example Eskayef, Renata, Incepta, Healthcare, Beacon, Techno Pharma and Julphar have come to manufacture a lot more than 80 types of ontological drugs.
Yet to create exports, Eskayef Bangladesh plans getting into the global arena for the very first time with cancer drugs.
"We have an idea to go on the global market in coming days. Hence we are taking planning," said its director for advertising and revenue, Mohammad Mujahidul Islam.
"Eskayef will set up a global class new center for oncology, which is the biggest one in the South Asian region, for grabbing the global market," he said.
And it is on the right course too, using its present state-of-the-art manufacturing unit having attained approvals of several regulatory bodies.
They include the EU Good Making Practice, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Firm of the united kingdom, the Therapeutic Goods Administration of Australia, the United Arab Emirates Good Making Practice, and the Veterinary Medications Directorate of the UK.
Beacon Pharmaceuticals alternatively lays claim to building 80 per cent of the country's export of cancer medicines of around 80 types found in chemotherapy and oral targeted therapy.
Bangladesh's export of cancer medications is increasing by around 30 to 35 % year-on-year, said its director for global organization development, Monjurul Alam.
Oncology items were beyond the getting power of patients during the past but prices went down by 40 % when Beacon started development through compliance with large standards, he said.
Bangladesh's drugs are winning the global industry for their quality and low rates; the drugs are cheaper than those supplied by the developed community, he added.
Renata, which makes cancer drugs employed for oral therapies, is certainly concentrating on the markets in Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and the Philippines, explained Ananta Saha, its international business manager.
He attributed the growth in exports to the drugs being cheaper as Bangladesh, being truly a least developed country, does not need to purchase patents.
There is scope for even greater expansion, since customs processes are flexible for lifesaving medicines. Moreover, merely the physician's prescription is required for any individual to take the medications from one country to some other, he said.
"Pharmaceutical products are essential for all countries. This is why the industry's exports didn't decline amid the Covid-19 outbreak. Rather it rose," explained Saha.
Locally produced cancer drugs are of internal standard and cheaper than imported ones, which is helping cancer treatment in Bangladesh, said Md Azizul Islam, consultant physician general and expert of medicine and oncology at Bangladesh MILITARY.
He believes it would not be much time that local pharmaceutical corporations will manufacture all types of cancer drugs.
