Pfizer offers to sell drugs plant to Venezuela
pharmafile | June 3, 2009 | News story | Manufacturing and Production | Pfizer, Venezuela
US drugmaker Pfizer has been in emergency talks with the government of Venezuela after being threatened with seizure of a pharmaceutical production plant earmarked for closure.
The company has said it would be prepared to sell the plant to the Venezuelan government, but also noted that it was in discussion with "other interested parties".
The row started after Pfizer said it was planning to close one facility in Valencia, Carabobo state, and consolidate production into another in the same city. Products made at the threatened plant include the antihypertensive medication Norvasc/Istin (amlodipine) and antibiotic products Zithromax (azithromycin) and Unasyn (ampicillin and sulbactam).
According to Venezuelan trade minister Eduardo Saman the drugmaker is also hoping to import some products rather than make them in Venezuela. The plant closure will affect around 175 workers, he told national newspaper El Universal, although Pfizer has said it plans to retain the total workforce of more than 300 staff across the two sites.
Pfizer has insisted that the move does not mean it will cease supply of any of essential medicines in Venezuela and was simply a means of rationalising its production.
Despite those assurances Saman asked President Hugo Chavez to consider taking over Pfizer's Venezuelan operations to guard against any impact on medicines supplies, arguing that the move was justified as the plant had been supported with government funding.
The minister said the government was considering the offer to buy the plant as it could be turned over to the production of generic medicines.
The posturing comes in the midst of a major nationalisation drive by the Chavez administration.
Last week the government announced its intention to nationalise a number of iron and steel companies, having already swooped on other sectors including food processing, banking, telecommunications, electricity and oil. Many of the affected companies are subsidiaries of foreign businesses.
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