Algeria determined in pharmaceutical industry

Algeria is determined to "be among the leaders" in the pharmaceutical industry, and it can no longer remain medicine-importing country, Minister of Health, Population and Investment Promotion Djamel Ould Abbes told APS at the end of his visit to Washington and Boston. During his stay in the United States of America from 18 to 21 June, the minister of the ministerial delegation accompanying him held several meetings with heads of a number of pharmaceutical firms in Washington and Boston, as well as of Harvard Medical School, Dana Faber Cancer Institute and the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), after their participation in the 2012 BIO International Convention in the capital of Massachusetts, Boston. The meetings are part of the preparations for the launch of a biotechnological pole in Sidi Abdallah, Algiers, which will be one of major partnership projects between Algeria and the U.S. The project is expected to be delivered by 2013, according to the minister, who announced that the first molecules, developed by the future laboratories and which might be transformed into medicines after several clinical trials, are expected for 2020. "We have the human and financial resources but we need the know-how of American researchers and leading pharmaceutical laboratories that are ready to contribute to the project, through knowledge transfer and training of Algerian researchers," the Health minister said.