Officials from the Ministry of Health are slated to commence consultations soon with the principals of a pharmaceutical firm that is said to have voiced an interest in establishing a factory here in Antigua.
That disclosure was made in this week’s post-Cabinet report, which revealed that the objective of the firm would be to produce a number of drugs that are in high demand within the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS).
Details about the firm, the potential location of the factory, and the type of drugs to be produced are unclear at this time, but the report noted that lowering the cost of some heavily-consumed drugs is the overall objective.
Chief of Staff in the Office of the Prime Minister, Lionel Hurst, was pressed for those details this week, but he told Thursday’s post-Cabinet media briefing that the talks are truly in their infancy.
“We haven’t gotten that far as yet. Before they could manufacture in Antigua, medicines that are acceptable, the local pharmaceutical authority would also have a great deal to say – [the prospective operators] must produce samples and those samples must be tested over time, before they could possibly sell medicines, not only to the Antigua and Barbuda population, but to the others in the OECS.
“The reason the OECS is mentioned is that we have a joint programme that allows us to purchase medicines collectively – this drives down the price significantly, because we’re buying in larger quantities than for a population of say maybe 10,000 people who require the particular medicine in Antigua.
“You multiply that by the six or seven independent states plus the non-independent countries of the OECS and that enlarges the market so that it could be more profitable for a pharmaceutical firm to operate out of Antigua,” Hurst explained.
A few weeks ago, Prime Minister Gaston Browne revealed that talks between the government and the CEO of Nigeria-based airline, Air Peace, were centred around some partnership in the pharmaceutical sector.
It is unclear whether this imminent consultation relates to that prior revelation from the PM.
