Chief Minister of Punjab, Shahbaz Sharif and Argentine Ambassador to Pakistan, H.E. Rodolfo Martin-Saravia inaugurated the new Corporate Office of the first Joint-Venture between Argentina and Pakistan, the leading Bio-Pharmaceutical Company ‘BF Biosciences Limited’ recently in Raiwind, Lahore.
BF Biosciences, a Joint Venture between Ferozsons Laboratories Limited, a publicly listed company on the KSE, and the Bagó Group of Argentina, is Pakistan’s first biotech pharmaceutical company, and manufactures biological drugs to treat Hepatitis C and Cancer. These drugs were previously only being imported into Pakistan. Established with a total investment of Rs.1 billion, the company’s manufacturing facility is fully USFDA compliant, and will be soon targeting the export markets of Europe and the USA.
Hepatitis C affects over 10 Million people in Pakistan. Since coming into production, BF Biosciences has become the leading supplier of Hepatitis C treatment in the country, and has reduced the cost of treatment more than 50%.
On the occasion of the inauguration, the company CEO, Osman Khalid Waheed, announced that to further benefit patients of this dread disease, they are further reducing the cost of a six month treatment with Pegylated Interferon, the gold standard in hepatitis C treatment, to around Rs. 100,000. The same imported treatment used to cost over Rs. 300,000 before the company commenced production of pegylated interferon in August 2010.
The Corporate Block being inaugurated by the Honourable CM and the Argentine Ambassador is an architectural achievement for Pakistan, and has won an international award in Architecture by WorldArchitecture.org, the world’s leading community of architecture professionals.
Earlier, Chief Minister and the Argentine Ambassador were conducted in tour of the plant by the CEO, Osman Khalid Waheed and visited the new Office Block shown in the picture for the inauguration ceremony where the traditional unveiling of the inauguration plaque took place.
In his remarks, Argentine Ambassador stressed the humanitarian nature of the Argentine investment in Pakistan: “Argentina chooses to be present in a peaceful and humanitarian manner: medicines. Medicines to alleviate the scourge of cancer. Medicine to cure Hepatitis. Medicines that Pakistan will not need to import any longer at high prices, but are now produced locally for the benefit of the population.”
In the seventh year of his tenure in Pakistan (one of the longest serving foreign Ambassadors accredited to Islamabad) Ambassador Martin-Saravia is very proud to see this investment growing for the benefit of the people of Pakistan. “I am a firm believer that it is through trade, investment and people to people contacts that nations grow together and in peace”, he concluded.