Boosting research, development and business

The 92-pages strategic document has also set the targets Turkey should reach by the end of the next decade by making it clear that the main goal is to achieve a local pharmaceutical production of 23,3 billion dollars leveraging on the production and release of technologically advanced solutions and considering that the national production facility infrastructure is already efficient and robust. 76% of the whole amount of drugs consumed in the country «on a box basis» and nearly 50% in terms of value are actually produced in the country. It then focused on exports that might eventually amount to 8,1 billion Us dollars and include both pharmaceutical products (worth 7,3 billion dollars); and clinical trial services (782 millions). Should this happen, Turkey would become a net exporter of pharmaceutical drugs displaying an export surplus of «more than one billion dollars». Even more meaningful is the budget that Ankara is to dedicate to national research and development activities and that might reach the record-high peak of 1,7 billion Us dollars. Facing both the consolidating western markets and the rapidly growing Asian emerging scenarios Turkey is also willing to «become a regional shared services center location» for that very portion of the pharmaceutical industry «that exports management services». The Pwc-Aifd Vision 2023 has calculated that the Central Asian and Caucasus regions alone, whose Gdp is 0,4 trillion dollars worth, import an average of two billion dollars worth of pharmaceutical products to serve a population of 82 million inhabitants. Much richer than this could prove the Middle Eastern and North African arenas with their combined 3,3 billion dollars Gdp and 647 million inhabitants: they import in fact an average of 14 billion dollars worth of pharmaceutical. The Russian federation potential market is only slightly smaller, totaling some 11 billion dollars in pharmaceutical import; not to mention Europe with its 264 million dollars expenditure in drugs and services. And «Eight billion dollars of export value», the report reminded, «equal to 2,7% of total import in Europe, Russia, Middle East and Caucasia».  Finally, any business interested in investing in the country should also take into account the attention Turkey has been paying to training and education throughout the whole last decade. There were 18 thousand specialist physicians in 2002; now they nearly doubled becoming 31 thousand; while «over 300 industrially sponsored or academic clinical trials took place in Turkey in 2011».