Abstract:

The story of Pakistan pharmaceutical industry is marked with dominance of multinational companies until 1990s leading the pharmaceutical markets with major market share however later national pharmaceutical companies fast emerged and currently the local pharmaceutical market is dominated by national companies with more than 60% market share. The focused group interviews with pharmaceutical industry professionals and local entrepreneurs revealed that one of the underlying cause of growth of national companies is the mergers and acquisitions of MNCs and closure of manufacturing facilities. Consequently lot of professionals and experts trained by MNCs became surplus and available in the market. National companies en-cashed this opportunity and made huge investments in their facilities and using the MNC trained professional improved the quality and capacity of their plants, erected new plants to meet the need of the local and international markets and also increased their export.