The Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Bandar bin Ibrahim Al-Khorayef confirmed that the ministry seeks to develop and create pharmaceutical industries capable of achieving drug security for the Kingdom, in addition to working to make the Kingdom a center for these important industries whose market size is estimated at 30 billion riyals, pointing out that The ministry works through the National Center for Industrial Development and in partnership with a number of government agencies to achieve these goals.

He said during the opening of the first virtual workshop to attract and localize the pharmaceutical industries organized by the National Center for Industrial Development under the slogan "sustainable pharmaceutical industry," The health challenges that the whole world went through as a result of the Corona pandemic created a great challenge that the world had not witnessed before, starting with the health and medical challenge. And its impact on supply chains, the way of life and the practice of daily life.

He stressed that the Ministry will undertake the development of the necessary legislation and regulations to localize this industry in partnership with the system’s parties and relevant government agencies, indicating that there is continuous work to protect markets from unfair competition and inferior products in cooperation with the Food and Drug Authority and the Standards and Metrology Authority, which are factors that will be Supporting development and increasing investments in the industrial sector.

He pointed out that the Ministry is working on more than one direction to achieve a number of goals, starting with identifying the pharmaceutical industries that the Kingdom needs to be localized and prioritizing, stressing the Ministry's desire to be a partner with the private sector in defining these priorities that aim to achieve drug security for the Kingdom, and to be The Kingdom is an exporter of many pharmaceutical products.

And he indicated that the volume of investment in the pharmaceutical sector in the Kingdom is the largest in the region, as it exceeds 30% of the Middle East market, while the number of pharmaceutical factories registered in the Kingdom exceeds 40 factories, covering 36% of the Saudi market's need for medicines. The volume of growth in this sector is estimated at 5% annually, with exports exceeding 1.5 billion riyals.

He added that there are several elements on which the pharmaceutical industry strategy is based, such as accurately limiting the size of the pharmaceutical market in the Kingdom, which has been divided into several sub-sectors to define the main pharmaceutical sectors in the Kingdom. Usually, all indicators and numbers make us more determined and insistent on the localization of this pharmaceutical industry in the Kingdom, We will work to provide all the enablers and incentives that contribute to the development of this important industry, and to attract local and foreign investments, stressing that the Kingdom has many advantages, including its geographical location, the existence of the appropriate environment for investment, the stability of legislation, and others.

The participants in the workshop organized by the National Center for Industrial Development touched on the size of the Kingdom's pharmaceutical market and opportunities for growth in regional and global markets, in addition to discussing the most prominent strengths of the Kingdom to be a major developer of the pharmaceutical sector, and the Kingdom's distinguished geographical position between the three continents.

The submitted working papers discussed the localization of vital medicines and vaccines through the National Biological Gathering Project, and building a concept for contractual factories (CDMO), to accelerate the transfer of biopharmaceutical technology and vaccines, in addition to identifying the pharmaceutical industries that the Kingdom needs to localize, such as chemical drugs and pharmaceuticals, in order to enhance drug and health security. For the kingdom.