Medical devices – syringes, needles, ampoules and other articles – will from now on be produced in Armenia.
The Mega Med company has opened a new plant of medical articles in Yerevan on Friday.
Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan attended the opening ceremony.
Armenia’s Minister of Health Derenik Dumanyan told reporters it has always been his dream that medical devices be produced in Armenia.
“The plant will be of great help to our system, first of all, due to a lower cost of production. It will fully meet Armenia’s demand and even more. Jobs will be created here for many of our fellow citizens,” Minister Dumanyan said.
Armenia’s hospitals will use the new plant’s products, as they will be much cheaper, with their quality not inferior to that of imported articles.
General Manager of the new plant Zhirair Hepoyan told Tert.am that the medical articles produced in Armenia will be cheaper, but it is drugstores that set the market price.
“If a drugstore sets a high price, we cannot do anything. But I think home-produced articles will be cheaper that their imported counterparts. Our products meet the GMP standards, which will allow us to export them,” Hepoyan said.
The new plant will start supplying its products to Armenia’s market in the first half of April.
“We plan to monthly produce 14 million syringes, 32 million needles, 14 to 16 million ampoules. Before the end of this May, we plan to create 400 jobs. At the second stage, another 400 people will be employed. We need production and mechanical engineers,” he said.
Investments totaling $42m have been made in the new plant, and will reach $47m when full-scale production process is launched.”