The agreement between the companies was signed on Saturday by Yaser Naghi, chairman of Cigalah Group, and Dr. Ayman Sahli, CEO of Julphar, in the presence of Faisal bin Saqr Al-Qasimi, chairman of Ras Al-Khaimah Free Trade Zone.
Naghi said the initial investment for the project would be SR150 million ($40 million) and would be producing branded generic products. The factory construction will start in January 2012 and end December 2013 at a location north of Jeddah.
The company will be using local experience with researchers and pharmacists to produce and distribute the products of the company in the Kingdom. "With the agreement with Julphar, Cigalah Group will reinforce its goal to make quality products available with affordable prices in the Kingdom," Naghi said. He added that once the new plant is set up, "we will broaden our product range."
Cigalah is a major distributor and sole agent for many multinational pharmaceutical, herbal, health care, and cosmetic companies in Saudi Arabia and some other Gulf countries.
Established in 1986, Cigalah is the fastest growing health care distributor in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East.
Based in Jeddah, Cigalah, a member of the Yousuf M.A. Naghi & Sons Group, provides fast and efficient distribution services to the wholesale and retail trade, hospitals, health centers and institutions through a well-trained medical sales force operating on a regional basis across the Kingdom. Cigalah extended its operation to most of the Gulf countries like the UAE, Kuwait and Bahrain.
About the joint venture with Julphar, Naghi said: "The cooperation between the two companies will be good for the pharmaceutical sector and will help in producing a wide range of products in the Kingdom."
He said Julphar was a big name in pharmaceutical world.
The company was established in 1980. It is a public shareholding company based in Ras Al-Khaimah in the UAE.
The company said in a statement that it has nine advanced plants to manufacture pharmaceuticals in line with international pharmaceutical standards with special care to minimize wastes, a fact attested by winning AISO 9001 and 14001.
The company has won Sheikh Muhammad bin Rashid Prize for Business and Arab Accomplishment Prize in 2011.
Its injections plant has been accredited by Food and Drug Administration of the US.
Its half a billion UAE dirham insulin plant has a capacity to produce 50 million injections.
Total production capacity of its nine plants is 4.8 billion doses of various medicines, and are marketed in 45 countries.
Julphar 1 makes various hard medications. Julphar 2 produces sterilized fluids and dry bottles, Julphar 3 has equipment to produce hard pills and capsules and antibiotics. Julphar 4 produces 300 million doses of sefalosporin oral doses. Julphar 5 provides mechanized packaging facilities, Julphar 6 produces liquid doses and solid doses and semi solid doses. Julphar 7 provides biotechnical labs. Julphar 8 is specialized in producing fluids and dry bottles, Julphar 9 provides sterilized sefalosporin with an annual capacity for 60 million bottles.
It has also printing units, packaging units, capsule factory and aluminum wrap factory.
