The House of Representatives' Health Committee has summoned the leaders of HoldiPharma company for pharmaceuticals for next week to hear the problems its subsidiaries are encountering, and to discern the reason behind the decline of the company's share in the Egyptian pharmaceutical market to less than 10%. Member of parliament Mohamed Al-Amary, head of the Health Committee, told Daily News Egypt that the goal of the meeting is to identify HoldiPharma's subsidiaries' development plans during the coming period, in light of the heightened competition with the private sector. He added that leaders from the Ministry of Health will also attend the meeting, to ensure coordination between companies and the ministry, amid the current pharmaceutical crisis. HoldiPharma company possesses 12 subsidiaries, and contributes in the capital of 12 companies. Minister of the Public Business Sector Ashraf El-Sharkawy said that HoldiPharma and its subsidiaries registered profits worth EGP 167m during the fiscal year (FY) 2015/2016, a decline of 11%. El-Sharkawy held a meeting on Tuesday with leaders of HoldiPharma to discuss the impact of the recent liberalisation of the exchange rate on production costs for raw materials and energy supplies. According HoldiPharma's website, revenues in FY 2012/2013 registered a growth of 10.8% compared to FY 2011/2012. The committee will hold a hearing session with the leaders of the Medical Holding Company to set a development plan for the subsidiaries in the coming period. Yemen El-Hamaky, board member of the Medical Holding Company affiliated to the Public Business Sector Ministry, said that the medicine market is currently suffering from a severe crisis due to the high cost of production after the liberalisation of Egyptian pound exchange rate. She added that providing medicine is a national security issue and the current situation is a result of the lack of vision and planning for medicine production in Egypt. El-Hamaky said that the crisis has been exacerbated due to the negligence of domestic medicine production; most raw materials are imported which allows private and foreign companies to control the medicine market. This hinders the market from benefiting from the Medicine Holding Company's subsidiaries. In May, the prime minister decided to increase the prices of all medicines that cost less than EGP 30 by 20%, at a maximum of EGP 6 per package. The subsidiaries of the Medical Holding Company have benefited from that decision, as 750 of its medical products now cost between EGP 1 and EGP 5, and 240 other products now cost between EGP 5 and EGP 10. These subsidiaries incurred a loss of EGP 200m in the last fiscal year, as a result of not raising the prices of medicines. Sami El-Mashad, member of the Health Committee, said that they have a number of questions and inquiries about the decline in market shares of the Medical Holding Company's subsidiaries during the last decade from 75% to less than 10%.
