Incepta is huge on health

The pharmaceutical industry in Bangladesh has the potential to be enormous. Currently, the half dozen accredited manufacturers export some $50-60 million worth, but if and when the government’s regulatory body expedites the accreditation procedure, an additional 20 or so companies could also add to the country’s export bill, possibly boosting it up to $20 billion, according to Abdul Muktadir, Managing Director of Incepta Pharma-ceuticals Ltd.

Established just 12 years ago, Incepta Pharmaceuticals Ltd. is already Bangladesh’s second largest company, and among the country’s top five manufacturing companies, it is the fastest growing. Having undergone the lengthy registration process, Incepta is a leading exporter of a wide variety of pharmaceutical products.

Mr. Muktadir puts Incepta’s rapid growth down to its diversification. “We are diversifying in all facets of health care. We started producing vaccines and then we started producing bio-similar products. We are also getting into hormonal products, which are very highly potent drugs. Our factory is probably the world’s largest factory producing hormones. It has a capacity of producing around 20 billion tablets a year,” he says.

To put this into perspective, he says that any Chinese factory producing 5-6 billion tablets a year is considered a big factory. Yet not only are Incepta’s vaccine, hormone and biotechnology facilities large, they are also world-class. “If you stepped into our factory, you would not be able to differentiate between our factory and a U.S. factory. Probably our Taksim factory is one of the best in the world,” claims the Managing Director.

Incepta specializes in value-added high-technology dosage forms and prides itself on its state-of-the-art research and development lab, which enables the company to continuously launch new and innovative products – always a step ahead of the competition – to fulfil unmet demand in the medical community. Coupling sophisticated technology and highly skilled, dedicated professionals with heavy investment in R&D, Incepta has already launched more than 334 generics with a total of 639 presentations. As many as 124 of the generics were new to Bangladesh at the time of launch.

Incepta currently exports to 35 countries, and with the imminent opening up of the European Union, this number will rise to 60. Nevertheless, Incepta does already export certain products to the U.K. Mr. Muktadir explains: “We have special ties with some U.K.-based companies and one U.S.-based company. They would be selling our product in America as well as the U.K. and Europe. We have recently made our first shipment to the U.K., which was our own development. Incepta is the first company from Bangladesh to start selling its own product in the U.K. It’s a medicine for the treatment of arthritis, so it is not just a cheap over-the-counter product, but a prescription drug.

“This is what we are doing and will continue to do, so our export figure will go up very fast and we will become a major source for vaccine, bio-similar, biotechnology products and also pharmaceuticals, and it is all a front-row open market.”