“Olainfarm” to supply anti-tuberculosis medication to the World Health Organisation

At the end of March AS „Olainfarm” became the first post-soviet producer of pharmaceuticals to have its product included in the list of prequalified medicines of the World Health Organisation (WHO). Anti-tuberculosis medicine Para amino salicylic acid - sodium salt (PASA) has been included in WHO programme for countries with high incidence of tuberculosis. This means that the company can sell this medication to the relevant programmes of WHO without separate market authorisation for particular countries. Within this programme Olainfarm has already been awarded a first order of received a first order of PASA worth 1.4 million US dollars.

 | Source: Olainfarm Olainfarm

Olaine, April 15, 2011, 2011-04-15 08:20 CEST (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- “Being prequalified for this WHO programme is the highest possible appreciation of quality of Olainfarm’s products. It opens new sales market for this anti-tuberculosis medicine. We are glad that the process of assessing production quality of Olainfarm that has lasted for four years has ended with such result, and it has been confirmed that in quality terms we are in the same league with pharmaceutical giants like “GlaxoSmithKline”, “Roche”, “Pfizer” and others”, says Valerijs Maligins, Chairman of Olainfarm’s Board.

 

AS “Olainfarm” launched PASA in 2001. Since then the company has been delivering this product to special clinical centres in Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Ukraine and Belarus.  In 2007 AS „Olainfarm” was awarded a contract by authorities of Kazakhstan to supply PASA to national reserves of Kazakhstan. Value of the contract then was 974 000 lats (1,38 million euro).

 

AS “Olainfarm” is the only European producer of PASA, producing it in a user friendly and comfortable form of sachets for per-oral use. PASA is an anti-tuberculosis medicine with bacteriostatic activity against micro-bacteria of tuberculosis. In combination with other anti-tuberculosis products it is being used for treatment of different forms and localisations of tuberculosis if more traditional treatment methods have proven ineffective.

 

List of WHO prequalified medicines includes companies from US, UK, Australia, Latvia, Belgium, RSA, France, Italy, India, China, Canada, The Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, Hungary, Germany and other countries. More detailed information about WHO programmes is available at: http://apps.who.int/prequal/default.htm.

 

 

A/s Olainfarm is one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in Latvia with nearly 40 years of experience in production of medication and chemical and pharmaceutical products. A basic principle of company's operations is to produce reliable and effective top quality products for Latvia and the rest of the world. Products made by the Group are being exported to more than 30 countries of the world, including the Baltics, Russia, other CIS, Europe, Asia, North America and Australia.  

         Information prepared by:
         Salvis Lapins
         Member of the Board
         A/s „Olainfarm”
         Tel: +371 6 7013 717
         Cell: +371 2 6448 873
         E-mail: slapinsh@olainfarm.lv