ZimPharm seeks investment partners
BULAWAYO-BASED pharmaceutical company, Zimbabwe Pharmaceuticals (ZimPharm), is scouting for potential investment partnerships to raise capital funding to expand production capacity and diversify operations.
ZimPharm general manager, Mr Donald Mabhiza, revealed this during a familiarisation tour of the company by a delegation from the Investment Professionals Association of Zimbabwe (IPAZ) in the city yesterday.
He said the pharmaceutical sector struggles to get funding or investors because their product development process can take up to 24 months before funders start getting their money back.
“We have a challenge in accessing finance, as sustaining the product development programme requires us to invest in resources, in people, and in material for medicine that will be introduced to the market after 24 months.
“This requires rigorous technical development, technical research, and regulatory oversight.
“In 24 months, we will be pouring money into medicines that will be going to the market after 24 months for you to realise the return on the investment. So, in that regard, we are the least understood industry by funders compared to other sectors,” said Mr Mabhiza.
“We welcome the opportunity by the IPAZ to come and have a familiarisation tour to understand the development pipeline and limitations that are posed by a stringent outlook in terms of investment into this sector.”
The company, however, applauded the Government for its support of the pharmaceuticals value chain through different initiatives including the introduction of Zimbabwe Gold (ZWG) in April this year.
He said over the past years, the sector has been struggling in terms of accessing foreign currency as they are importing almost 100 percent of their raw materials.
“We applaud the Government efforts to stabilise the ZWG and by funding our foreign currency requirement and I would like to say, this year we have not had many challenges in accessing foreign currency compared to other years,” said Mr Mabhiza.
“I commend Government efforts to support the pharmaceuticals.
“You will find that slowly we are increasing the number of products that are locally manufactured because to import medicine is not desirable and we are importing close to 70 percent of the national medicine need,” he stated.
“We are working on expanding our product portfolio, addressing specific health needs of the population, particularly in non-communicable diseases, which have become more prevalent.
“We applaud the Government efforts to support the industry with foreign currency requirements though a little room is still there for improvement.”
The pharmaceutical sector is one of the 10 priority value chains under the National Development Strategy 1 (NDS1) and the Government is continuously engaging private sector players to unlock higher value and growth of the sector.
IPAZ is a local chapter of the Investment Professionals Association, which is an international organisation headquartered in the United States of America.
It is a group of investment professionals who are mostly chartered financial analysts, charter holders, and candidates. Today the organisation is set to host a conference for Bulawayo businesses and other key stakeholders.
IPAZ vice-president, Mr Ranga Makwata, said ZimPharm has opportunities to raise capital through issuing securities, and private placement. — -croncile
