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Mohammad Amin Khan Chairman ZAFA Labs |
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Jawad Amin Khan Managing Director ZAFA Labs. |
"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.
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