I&M Exclusive: Discussion with Mohammad Amin Khan Chairman, ZAFA Pharmaceutical Laboratories (Pvt.) Ltd.

 

Mohammad Amin Khan
Chairman
ZAFA Labs

A gentle and a soft-spoken person, Mr. Muhammad Amin Khan, is chairman of one of the most dynamic and successful pharmaceutical companies of Pakistan. ZAFA has one of the largest manufacturing facilities in Pakistan with total covered area of over 500,000 square feet, and is operating nine manufacturing facilities. It is the first and only Pakistan based multinational having its manufacturing unit in Sudan.  As he describes in this interview, this success has been built on simple principles and values:  patriotism, product quality and positive thinking.  He is always passionate about his objective of “ensuring the availability of quality drugs at affordable prices throughout the country and abroad.”  During his exclusive interview, he was joined by his young and energetic son, Mr. Mohammad Jawad Amin Khan, who also shared his views on the present state, issues and problems of the pharmaceutical industry in Pakistan as well as abroad. Under the training and guidance received from his highly

Jawad Amin Khan
Managing Director
ZAFA Labs.

experienced father, Mr. Jawad shoulders major responsibilities of operations and manufacturing of Zafa products as Managing Director of the group. He shared his mission and vision about the pharmaceutical sector of Pakistan with I&M in the following pages.

"No one should suffer from Want of Medication" 

Vision & Mission of ZAFA Pharmaceuticals:

ZAFA firmly believes that "No one should suffer from Want of Medication" and our motto of "Medicines for All" is clearly depicted in our pricing strategy.

For the past 42 years we have always focused only on our business. We do not waste our time worrying about how much money our competitor is making or on how much investment they are doing and just focus our energy in our own developments and excel in our work.

ZAFA’s basic principle is to ensure that every citizen of Pakistan should have access to Quality medication and with my scientific base and my experience in the initial years at a Major Multinational Pharmaceutical company I have ensured that at every level there should be no compromise on Quality. I am sure once you go through our product list you can clearly see that all our medicines are rightly priced without any compromise on our part.

I would also like to clarify that we manufacture Quality Products at economical prices but we do not reach our selling price by calculating at what price my competitors are selling however at ZAFA we have our own understanding of how much profitability should we have and then work upwards after calculating our cost and margins. I can give you two examples whereby we are API manufacturers of products, like Paracetamol and Amoxicillin however our finished products are available at higher prices than the usual ones in the market since we manufacture only Quality Products.

In 1973, I founded ZAFA with a few employees and now we have 5600 employees working in our different units. ZAFA has one of the largest manufacturing facilities in Pakistan with total covered area of over 500,000 square feet.  We are operating with nine manufacturing facilities.  ZAFA is the first Pakistan- based multinational pharmaceutical manufacturing concern with its own manufacturing facility based in Khartoum, Sudan. In addition to this, we have our presence in various African, Asian. Middle Eastern and South & Central American countries.

Products & Sales of ZAFA Pharmaceuticals:

Fortunately, whichever market we have entered, with the Grace of Allah Almighty, we have only seen our volumes go up. In line with our belief of Manufacturing Quality Products only and not compromising on Quality, we are the only company in Pakistan that guarantees that there will be no cross-contamination in our products with the help of our various dedicated facilities. In addition to quality control facilities at each of our units, we have a fully equipped Central Quality Assurance/Control Laboratory to monitor quality operations.

We have dedicated specific plants in various locations for different products, irrespective of their quantity. We have strength and we have weaknesses too. Our major weakness is that we don’t want to show-off. What we have is in front of all. We are focused towards the masses and work differently than the normal pattern in Pakistan. Our pricing policy is focused towards our citizens, citizen of this country, Pakistan, which has given all of us EVERYTHING. The people who are aware and educated choose ZAFA products above multinational’s products since the quality is the same, and the price is less. In Karachi, as per our sales patterns, highest sales are realized in well-to-do-areas Like DHA or PECHS, etc. ZAFA has realistic prices and the educated people, who are aware and know how to judge quality, use ZAFA products. ZAFA is all about my belief in the theory of “medicine for all”. We manufacture some products on no-loss no-profit level which are classified as Orphan Drugs. We have a whole list of products whereby our unit wise sales are much higher than those of multinationals and as a policy we don’t give our unit data to IMS or any other private agency. We have some products whose sales are much greater than the same multinational products.  

ZAFA exports its medicines at much higher prices as we firmly believe that our true responsibility is towards our own people however when we export we follow their market trends and in many countries our prices are much higher than in Pakistan. Likewise, we truly understand the working of the multinationals in Pakistan who are here for profit as we are doing the same in other countries; however we truly appreciate their contributions towards the growth of the national sector. They bring in latest products and latest technology, research and professionalism. They contribute in human resource development. We should appreciate them and should not expect them to make their products available at low prices. We should all understand that they are here to make money and we should let them make money however we should make use of their expertise which they have learnt in their long journey to be where they are today and grow. Major research companies spend huge amounts of funds on R&D and have various patents. We respect their patents and ZAFA has never infringed any patents. We respect all laws which give encouragement to Intellectual property and believe that they should be respected.

Contract Manufacturing in Pakistan:

We firmly believe that it should be between manufacturing companies only, i mean one manufacturing company to another. It has been misused widely.  For example, if I have a dedicated facility for Cephalosporin or for Penicillin, and if another manufacturer wants to have market these products but do not want to invest in a dedicated facility than he should be encouraged to get them manufactured at a dedicated facility. This would overall increase the quality of products in the market. However and any random person from the market should not come to you and hires you for contract manufacturing. This currently needs to be discouraged since the liability of the product is on the manufacturer. I firmly believe that contract manufacturing should be within manufacturing companies only and also for those companies who are currently importing their products and want to now manufacture the product locally. This would firstly ensure betterment of quality of Pharmaceutical products and for imported products, manufactured locally, will bring in new product technology to Pakistan.

 Sub-Standard and Counterfeit Drugs:

Smallest investment in pharmaceutical sector is about Rs. 150 million (15 crores).  I personally do not believe that anybody will invest millions of rupees and then manufacture sub-standard or counterfeit drugs. It is beyond imagination that knowingly a licensed manufacturer will manufacture counterfeit or sub-standard drugs. Errors are possible. They happen around the world. If you go on the US FDA website you can daily see a number of medicines being withdrawn because they have manufacturing errors.

Pakistan and South Asia Region:

Pakistani companies export on better prices than our competitors in the region. In the markets where we compete with India, Pakistani drugs have a better price than many Indian manufacturers, on the basis of quality. This can be seen and verified by data. But we are not showing these positive things to our Masses and to the people of Pakistan. I fail to understand why everyone shows a very negative image about Pakistan.

Regulators in Pharmaceutical Industry of Pakistan:

I think they have done a fantastic job. I'm sure a lot of national companies like mine will owe their growth to the guidance given by our Regulators at every level. If Pakistani Pharmaceutical companies can export its medicines at higher prices on the basis of its quality it clearly depicts the hard work that our regulators have done with us. In the last 20 years we saw a change from strict regulation to partnership and eventually learning. This has helped a lot of us companies in further improving our Quality Operations which reflects on the quality of our products.

Human Resource Development:

We firmly believe that only professional people can run a progressive organization and implement its beliefs and philosophies. Our employees are one of our most important assets and we run carefully tailored training programs are provided around the year for updating their knowledge and skills. In Pakistan, pharmacy education is of international standard and we are proud of it.

I feel that exports are very vital for development of companies. I Am sure that if we pharma companies can form strategic alliances and synchronize our energies we would be able to do a much better job in achieving Pakistan's export targets and raise the standard of Quality medicines in Pakistan.