Rwanda to invest in Quality Chemicals

Rwanda’s President, Paul Kagame, has said that this government will consider investing in a joint project with local drug manufacturer Quality Chemicals to set up a plant to process anti-malarial drugs raw materials.

President Paul Kagame who was responding to Quality Chemicals chief executive officer, Mr Emmanuel Katongole’s request was Friday morning touring the Luzira-based plant to see developments in the pharmaceutical sector in the country. “My government promises that it will take up the initiative because it makes sense to join hands and do a joint venture in a cost-effective way. We shall send a team of experts to ascertain all the possibilities of having the project in the region a reality,” Mr Kagame said.

Mr Katongole said if established, the Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients plant (API) will not only save the plant millions of shillings that are ferried out annually to import the raw material but will also create jobs for both Ugandan and Rwandan citizens.

Despite Artemesia Annua – a plant from which derivatives for malaria medicines are extracted – being grown in plenty in Kabale District, local anti-malaria drug manufacturers still import the raw material from India due to lack of a local processing plant.

“Imagine we buy the plant from the farmers in Kabale and take it to India to process it into the required raw material and we import it back yet we can do it from here. We have the plant and the human capital to do it,” Mr Katongole said.

To have the plant up and running, according to Mr Katongole, requires an investment of about $80 million (Shs200b).

He also requested President Kagame to allow the firm market access for both ARVs and ACTs in Rwanda, requesting that the Rwandan government purchases its anti-Aids and anti-malarial pharmaceutical products from Quality Chemicals.

Indigenous approach
“There is need to support and prioritise our indigenous industries even at the competitive advantage of outsiders to grow the local industries,” Mr Katongole said.

Despite the five East African countries being in a common market allowing for free movement of goods and services among partner states, medicines fall in a different category where the international bidding processes is left to take its course, making it difficult for some factories especially those that are not subsidised to compete for such bids. Quality chemical currently exports to South Sudan. It also recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Kenyan government where it committed that effective next financial year, it will be sourcing most of their ARVs and ACTs from Quality Chemicals.

To meet the export market demand which is expected to grow in the near future, the firm said it has finalised plans for a second factory that will see it double its production capacity from the current 6 million tablets per day to 18 million. The plant is expected to start in the next three months.

fkulabako@ug.nationmedia.com