Pharmaceutical firms make inroads into Saudi Arabia

Four Korean pharmaceutical companies will export their products, including antibiotics and anticancer drugs, to a Saudi Arabian firm for the next five years, the Health Ministry said Wednesday, as a result of President Park Geun-hye’s business-oriented trip to the country this week.

The representatives of the Korean firms ― JW Holdings, Chong Kun Dang Holdings, Boryung Pharm and BC World Pharm Co. ― signed a memorandum of understanding with the Saudi firm Sudair Pharmaceutical Co. on Tuesday in Sudair, Saudi Arabia.

The ministry estimates the deals to be worth about 200 billion won ($182.3 million).

Among the Korean firms, JW Holdings is also establishing an infusion solution plant in Sudair, a city north of the Saudi capital Riyadh, becoming the first Korean pharmaceutical company to do so in the Middle East-North Africa region.

The plant will be constructed in the Korean pharmaceutical industry complex, which is also to be established in the city. The opening date of both the complex and plant has not yet been decided, the ministry said.

Korea’s Yonsei University Severance Hospital has agreed to be in charge of treatment at a medical center specializing in women’s cancers that is scheduled to open in Riyadh in 2016.

The hospital, which will house about 150 patients, is being constructed by Saudi health care firm Integrated Business Ventures and a number of U.S. firms.

Korea’s Green Cross Laboratories, on the other hand, has signed to establish a clinical laboratory in Saudi Arabia to research specimens collected from patients at the medical center in Riyadh.

All the deals between the firms of the two countries were signed a deal during Park’s ongoing trip to the Middle East, which also includes visits to Kuwait, Qatar and UAE.

“We hope health and medical businesses can generate the second ‘Middle Eastern boom’ following the early bilateral ties between Korea and the Middle East in the ’70s, which were limited to energy and construction,” said Health Minister Moon Hyung-pyo, who is currently accompanying Park.

At the government level, Moon and his Saudi counterpart Al Khateeb agreed to launch joint research and development projects on health care. South Korea will share information on its national health insurance system, as well as its Hospital Information System ― known as HIS ― where all of the medical charts are digitized, along with the personal data of the patients, among others.

South Korea is one of the most popular medical tourism destinations for affluent citizens in the Middle East. Some 2,500 people from the four Middle East countries visited Seoul in 2013 for medical treatment.

Among them, those from the UAE spent the most ― an average of 17.7 million won, which is almost 9.5 times higher than the average spending of 1.8 million won per foreign patient the same year.

By Claire Lee (dyc@heraldcorp.com)