The leading Turkish pharmaceutical company Abdi Ibrahim purchased 28.5 per cent of the shares of the Swiss biotech company OM Pharma for TL 4.2 billion (USD 530 million), making it the company’s second-largest shareholder.

With the partnership, which became official on September 18, 2020, OM Pharma will spend 250 million Swiss francs (approximately 2.1 billion TL) on R&D and clinical studies of biotechnological drugs in the upcoming period. Announcing its partnership agreement to the public simultaneously with Switzerland, Abdi Ibrahim Chairman Nezih Barut said that Abdi Ibrahim has maintained its domestic and national character since the day it was founded and has always acted intending to have a voice in the international arena.

The Chairman stated that the view that “Turkish companies are being sold to foreign companies” has changed and added that they will produce certain chemicals and biotech drugs together with OM Pharma. Barut said that the company is among the world’s 100 largest pharmaceutical companies, “We have one of Turkey’s and Europe’s most modern pharmaceutical plants. We were pioneers in the field of biotechnology in Turkey with AbdiBio. We opened our production facilities in Kazakhstan, Algeria. We made a start-up investment in developing new molecules in America.

Biotech drugs account for about 20% of the world pharmaceutical market. The size of the market in this region will reach 445 billion dollars in 2019. It is estimated that the share of biotechnology in all drug diagnostics products will increase to 80% by 2030.

Our partnership will accelerate our goal of expanding into new markets, specifically with our biotech products, especially in Latin America, China and the USA pharmaceutical markets. Abdi Ibrahim will have the opportunity to benefit from OM Pharma’s experience in these markets. Likewise, OM Pharma will reach the Middle East and North African countries where we are very active but have not been present until today through us. Besides, with our strengthening of global corporate identity, new career opportunities will arise abroad for our qualified human resources.

The Turkish market for pharmaceutical biotechnology in Turkey has reached TL 3.4 billion (54.78 million dollars). Thirty-one of the 100 best-selling drugs in Turkey are biotechnology products with a market share of about 17%.

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