Algeria: Tebboune, season 3
After having helped international companies to set up in Algeria for more than twenty years, the time has come for a reorientation. La Générale Pharmaceutique Services (GPS) now wants Algerian companies to benefit from its services. Starting the project in eight African countries, the company has just concluded a technical assistance partnership in Mali to cover the zone of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
Founded in 1996 by Bakhti Brahim, a pharmacist by profession, the GPS began by assisting multinational drug companies with all regulatory aspects by ensuring the registration, promotion and marketing of their products, until they might create their own subsidiary. Over the years, major companies (Aventis, GSK, Abdi Brahim, Roche or Johnson & Johnson, Galderma, BMS) have gone through his services.
We are convinced to have Algerian products with international standards and with an unequaled quality-price ratio.
“Building a strategy, carrying out market research and promoting medicine, we have been doing this for years, but the needs of the market are constantly changing and GPS must adapt in order to be able to maintain its leading position”, observes Malika. Benmouffok, General Manager. The year 2020 was thus devoted to “reinventing itself strategically to remain a leader and meet the needs of our customers”. With the ambition of conquering “all markets”, the leader says she is convinced that Algeria has “products that meet international standards and have an unrivaled quality-price ratio”. “We studied African and Middle Eastern markets, so we offered our services to local producers,” she adds.
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A market with specific needs
In sub-Saharan Africa, markets and pathologies are different, and it is necessary to adapt to health systems, laws and local problems. At the end of 2020, the countries, the products and the strategy are defined, the first contracts finally signed. There remains the great challenge of distribution, usually the Achilles heel of Algerian companies that dream of exporting.
“Overall, we have done all the studies possible. However, we can only advise and it is up to the producers to choose their distribution circuit”, specifies Malika Benmouffok. To export, it is still best to go through the largest distribution platforms in the pharmaceutical industry to remain competitive.
The African market is an import market, the majority of products come from it
In 2021, GPS is setting a new course, moving towards new multinational companies by offering them local products. For Malika Benmouffok, relationships must be built on a win/win approach. For export, registering the products is not enough, you have to be able to market them in a very competitive market. The GPS relies on “effective promotion strategies to gain market share and make the export sustainable”.
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The African market is an import market, the majority of products come from there. The General’s Algerian customers are therefore oriented towards existing products with high potential, or even, for those – and there are many of them – who invest in research and development, towards the creation of innovative products with high potential for these markets. -the.
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“Algeria is truly a portal to Africa and the Mena region (Middle East and North Africa), our goal is to be referenced as the company that supports multinationals and local producers in these areas”, confirms the general manager @who has built her entire career within these rigorous schools that are foreign companies. The next challenge for GPS? open its own subsidiary company.
