National Pharmaceutical Industries (NPI) Company, Oman's first drugs company, which started commercial production in May of 2001 at Muscat's Rusayl Industrial Estate, is now in the process of sending product registration files to all Gulf states.

"We are the first company in the GCC region to be inspected and audited for Unified GCC Registration...Our audit was successful and we are registered as a company in all the remaining Gulf countries," said general manager AV Bhalerao.

Export activities will follow product registration, assured Bhalerao. NPI managed to gain registration in Iraq within six months of the start of commercial production.

NPI's important products include Omol syrup, tablets and drops; Omvil syrup and tablets, Omacillin capsules and oral suspension, oral rehydration salt, Omafen suspension and tablets and Omathrocin and Omatan tablets.

In the main building of the production complex it has sections for tablets coated and uncoated (200 million per year), bottles (oral liquids,7 million, and oral dry syrups, 4.6 million), sachets (4.4 million) and capsules (5 million).

At the Beta Lactum plant, sections exist for capsules (hard gelatin) (70 million), bottles (dry syrup) (4.6 million) and tablets (proposed) (60 million).

NPI is a public limited company.

The project was completed at a cost of RO10 million, half the amount of which was funded by the government in the form of soft loans, while the remaining amount was provided by shareholders in the form of equity capital. The Ministry of Health, the Public Authority for Social Insurance and the Civil Service Employees Pensions Fund are major equity holders from the government side. Shaikh Suhail Bahwan and his group of companies as well as Oryx Joint Investment Account and Al Yousuf International Enterprises are major shareholders from the private sector

The high-tech plant was set up in accordance with World Health Organisation cGMP norms and UK MCA and US FDA requirements.

"The entire project has been completed after surpassing various milestones of project implementation. The company has taken adequate care with regard to environmental factors," a company text said.

"NPI aims to be a world-class pharmaceutical manufacturing unit as was originally envisaged by the visionaries of the Ministry of Health. To achieve this vision, most of the plant and machinery have been selected from reputed European sources.

"NPI is a landmark achievement for the progressive nation. This goes to prove that the country is marching towards achieving self-reliance through diversification," it added.

The company's targeted markets are the GCC states, Iraq, Libya, Yemen and the former Soviet republics.

"The important step for developing markets over the years is to first identify potential distributors along with the network. We will be concentrating more on product innovation and sales promotional activities. "Each and every product will have a quality niche," said Bhalerao.