Actavis selects Malta as Africa waypoint
The firm, which already has warehousing and manufacturing capacity at its facility in the Southern Maltese town Zejtun, unveiled its plans at a press conference to announce its five-year distribution agreement with Algeria’s Laboratoire Pharmaceutique Algerien (LPA).
Actavis’ executive vice- president emerging markets, Hordur Thorallson, told the Maltese Independent that he wanted to see Malta become a regional production and distribution base for the companies operations in Africa, which he described as being “within touching distance.”
Generics firms like Actavis and Swiss rival Siegfried have long chosen Malta as a base from which to operate due to the fact that the country is close to Europe but not covered by the European Union’s patent convention.
In addition, while Malta has had patent law in place since 2002, very few pharmaceutical companies have bothered to file for protection there, perhaps because it is considered too small a market to bother with.
Actavis’ latest plans suggest that, as big pharma focuses on emerging markets in the hope that the revenues they generate will compensate for the difficult economic times being experienced elsewhere, generic players are redoubling their efforts to maintain their traditionally strong positions in developing drug markets.
Less regulated pharmaceutical markets may also seem like an attractive proposition for the Icelandic firm at the moment, if only as they provide a respite from the ongoing US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) investigation of its Actavis Totowa subsidiary.
