SMC Pharmaceuticals, a division of SMC Enterprise Ltd, is on the verge of starting operations through toll manufacturing with Julphar Pharmaceuticals, Bangladesh. Recently, SMC Enterprise was given approval by the Directorate General of Drug Administration to manufacture and market 20 pharmaceutical products in its own brand name. These drugs belong to both OTC categories as well as from selective therapeutic class. A number of other drugs are awaiting approval from the Drug Administration.

In addition, SMC Pharmaceuticals has started to recruit and extensively train its sales force to effectively market its products to doctors and community health providers and generate prescriptions. So far, 85 Medical Information Officers (MIO), zonal and territory supervisors have been recruited, trained and posted in the respective territories. The slogan that will drive SMC’s pharmaceutical business is “providing quality medicine for all” irrespective of socio-economic status and ability to pay. The distribution of the drugs will be undertaken by a third party distributor while orders from the pharmacies will be taken by the MIO as well as SMC’s sales officers. Actual distribution is expected to begin by July 2017.