Biogaran SAS,
a closely held French pharmaceuticals manufacturer, plans to tap into Nigeria’s
$1.3 billion drugs market as a launchpad for its expansion into Africa, company
President Pascal Briere said.
The unit of
France’s second-largest drug maker, Les
Laboratoires Servier, last month acquired Nigeria’s Swipha
Ltd. after an initial
$500,000 investment. Biogaran expects Nigeria’s pharmaceuticals industry
to grow by more than 12 percent annually.
“We
found that Nigeria is well adapted for what we want to do,” Briere said in
an April 3 telephone interview from Paris. “We decided to invest when the
recession was in its worst moment.”
Nigeria’s
drug-manufacturing companies have struggled to source raw materials and
imported inputs because of a foreign-currency squeeze caused by the plunge in
income from oil, its main export, as prices fell from 2014 and militant attacks
cut output to record lows. Briere is optimistic that Nigeria’s economy will
soon recover after it fell by 1.5 percent last year, its first contraction in a
quarter century. Inflation has accelerated to 17.8 percent.
“It’s
a bet on the future for sure,” he said of the company’s investment in Nigeria,
adding that opportunities are also being explored in Ivory Coast and Kenya. To
start with, the company plans to use “Nigeria as a base to export to other West
African countries,” Briere said.
Source: Bloomberg
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