Hikma Pharmaceuticals Egypt announced the launch of its new business unit “Hikma Specialized Egypt” as part of their strategic vision focusing on high need areas and providing, access to affordable high tech therapies to Egyptian patients, today during a press conference held at the Four Seasons. The creation of Hikma Specialized is seen as a strategic move to improve the company’s ability to meet the unique and urgent needs of cancer patients and health care providers in Egypt.
“Despite the progress made in the fight against cancer, serious unmet needs persist across many forms of the disease,” said Mazen Darwazah, Executive Vice chairman, President and CEO, HIKMA MENA and Emerging Markets. “Hikma Specialized brings with it a deep understanding of this fast changing therapeutic area and applies scientific rigor and resources to work. Our agile business model optimally organizes us to quickly meet the diverse needs of cancer patients, health care providers and systems in Egypt, and bring the next generation of cancer treatments to patients at affordable prices.”
Building on Hikma Pharmaceutical’s global oncology commercial operations, the Hikma Specialized Business Unit remains closely aligned with Hikma’s dedicated global oncology unit to together drive forward the company’s portfolio of products in Egypt while maintaining a focus on expanding new product launches in the near and longer terms. As a fully integrated unit within Hikma’s global network, the Specialized Business Unit will leverage expertise from its parent company to help accelerate local capabilities, ensure continued understanding of evolving patient needs, and drive the oncology business in Egypt and the region at large.
In line with this strategy, Hikma Pharmaceuticals acquired EIMC United Pharmaceuticals (“EUP”), a local Egyptian pharmaceutical manufacturing company specializing in oncology products, less than a year ago. The acquisition strengthened Hikma’s ability to bring high tech locally manufactured oral and injectable oncology products onto the Egyptian market. With the acquisition Hikma has acquired an attractive portfolio and pipeline in the key strategic areas of oncology and injectables, with the potential to add around 50 products by 2020. The acquisition represented part of a strategic initiative by Hikma to ensure local manufacturing capability of high tech medicines in Egypt.
EPU Hikma manufacturing facility is currently being upgraded to comply with Hikma global manufacturing standards, in line with most Hikma manufacturing sites worldwide which are certified by US FDA and MHRA. As the only manufacturing facility in the region with the capability of producing high tech oral oncology products and injectables the site provides Hikma Specialized with a strategic opportunity to create a strong local platform for future growth while improving access for patients in the region to many generic oncology medicines.
“Our commitment to providing high quality breakthrough medicines at affordable prices and passion for improving the lives of patients is stronger than ever,” said Dr. Hassan Shafick Managing Director Hikma Egypt. “In working towards our aspiration to cure cancer, our singular focus has been on ensuring a steady supply of high quality breakthrough medicines for cancer patients, particularly for those battling different forms of cancer. Now, with a more robust local manufacturing capability and with a global network and resources, provided by Hikma Pharmaceuticals internationally, we are optimally positioned to leverage all tools at our disposal to quickly acquire and locally produce compounds for cancer patients in Egypt and the MENA region at large.”
Commenting on the above Professor Hamdy Abdel Azim Professor of Oncology Center “There are a number of barriers to effective treatment of cancer worldwide including Egypt among them the most obvious being affordability since cancer treatments are mostly extremely expensive. In addition to interruption in the availability of those medicines which compromise cancer treatment. “He added that “having locally produced high quality and high tech oncology products at affordable prices and consistently available on the Egyptian market is a significant step forward in the healthcare industry which should be emulated by other pharma companies. And; in my opinion this is the first step which invariably will lead to increased compliance of treatment and significantly reduce the strain on patients and the healthcare system in Egypt.”
Since its establishment in 2007 in Egypt Hikma Pharmaceuticals has built a leading position in less than a decade. Key to this success has been a focus on developing value-added products with customers that go beyond standard generics. “As the world market for generic injectables to treat cancer continues to expand, our specialty generics business will enjoy a much broader regional reach. We will also be able to offer greater benefits to patients and healthcare providers while creating a more competitive growth platform for our complementary businesses,” said Shafick.
