Africa-Press – Botswana. President Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi yesterday toured the state of the art pharmaceutical facility, MDB Pharma, to appreciate its operations.
Located in Tlokweng, MDB Pharma, is a 100 per cent citizen-owned company and the country’s first.
It provides a range of high quality products including antiretroviral drugs, antibiotics as well as antihypertensive medicine.
In an interview, MDB Pharma managing director, Dr Thato Kgosimotho said the newly-established company was on the right track and was planning to build capacity with regard to good manufacturing practices.
Disclosing the company’s plans to enlist outside Botswana, Dr Kgosimotho said another dream was to build resource capacity as exports required abundance of raw materials in order to meet demand.
“The pharmaceutical value chain is a long chain and we are currently at the end of that chain. We yearn to go back to the start of the chain and have the capacity to produce raw materials needed for pharmaceutical products. We are proud that we have already started,” he said.
Dr Kgosimotho said it was time for Batswana to engage in the line of business that was initially a far-fetched dream.
He expressed appreciation for government’s support in business describing it as pleasing.
“It offers a conducive environment in its ease of doing business efforts. It takes us as a people to stand up and take up the advantage. We have the technology though building expertise in this line of industry may take time,” said Dr Kgosimotho.
MDB Pharma has a team of highly qualified experts of different specialties including medical doctors, microbiologists, pharmacists, chemical engineers and quality control inspectors.
The company is a subsidiary of Medical Devices Botswana (MDB), a personal protective equipment manufacturer.
At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, Minister of Health, Dr Edwin Dikoloti visited the facility in appreciation of the company’s virus fighting efforts.
For More News And Analysis About Botswana Follow Africa-Press
