The financing deal for a new insulin production project in Algeria was signed on June 12. The contract was inked with the IFC, the financial branch of the World Bank. This is a joint venture between the state owned pharmaceutical company, Saydal, and its foreign partners the Danish Novo Nordisk and the French Pierre Fabre. The Scandinavian firm has been active in the Algerian market for approximately 30 years and opened a representative office in this North African country during the second half of the 1980s.
The new insulin factory will be located in the industrial zone of Wadi Issa at Tizi Ouzou. Its production capacity will amount to 37 million units per annum and its investment cost to $40 million, al Yaum daily reported. The construction of the factory, which is planned to meet the needs of all Algerian insulin consumption, will be finished by the end of 2001.
The insulin project is not the only one that involves foreign investment in the Algerian pharmaceutical sector. According to Mr. Ali Aawn, President Saydal president, the Rhone-Poulenc project at Wadi al Samar is 80 percent completed, whereas the JV with Pfizer will be concluded by the end of this year.
- albawaba.com
