Type Private Website Homepage Founded June 2005 Total assets 120 million USD (2012) | Services Pharmaceuticals Headquarters Kampala, Uganda Number of employees 350 (2012) Parent organization Meditab Holdings Ltd. | |
Industry Pharmaceutical Industry Key people Emmanuel Katongole
Executive Chairman
Nevin Bradford
Executive Director & CEO | ||
Cipla Quality Chemical Industries Limited (CQCI) is a pharmaceutical manufacturing company in Uganda. According to a 2007 published report, it was the only company in Africa that manufactured triple-combination antiretroviral (ARV) drugs. CQCI also manufactures the antimalarial drug Lumartem, containing artemisinin and lumefantrine, and the hepatitis B generic medicines Texavir and Zentair.
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Location
CQCI's pharmaceutical manufacturing plant is located in Luzira, a neighborhood in Nakawa Division in south-eastern Kampala. The plant is approximately 9 kilometres (5.6 mi), by road, south-east of Kampala's central business district. The coordinates of the plant are 0°18'17.0"N, 32°38'22.0"E (Latitude:0.304723; Longitude:32.639436).
History
In 2004, Quality Chemicals Limited (QCL) convinced Indian drug maker Cipla to go into a joint venture with QCL and the government of Uganda to establish a pharmaceutical plant in Uganda. Ground was broken in 2005 and the factory was commissioned in 2007, with capacity of 6 million pills daily.
In 2009, TLG Capital invested an undisclosed amount of money in the plant. Later, Capitalworks Investment Partners, a private equity firm based in South Africa, also became a shareholder in the plant. In February 2010, the government of Uganda divested from the plant by selling its shares "at cost" to CQCI. The transaction was valued at US$5 million.
In February 2011, the owners of the plant announced an US$40 million expansion to the production line to include increased production of antiretroviral and antimalarial medication. In April 2012, British media reported that CQCI was in the process of expanding its manufacturing capacity fourfold. The plant had received approval of its processes and products from the World Health Organization. The products were expected to be initially marketed in Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda.
According to a 2012 published report, a second plant is being planned to be built next to the first plant, which would raise CQCI's manufacturing capacity to 18 million pills daily.
As of April 2016, the company's products were marketed in Cameroon, Comoros, Kenya, Namibia, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia.
Ownership of pharmaceutical plant
As of July 2015, the shareholding in the pharmaceutical plant was as depicted in the table below:
Cipla also owns 50 percent of Quality Chemicals Limited.
Governance
The executive chairman of the board of directors of CQCI is Emmanuel Katongole, who was formerly the managing director of QCIL. He replaced Francis Kitaka, the first person in East Africa to train as a biochemist, The managing director of CQCI is Nevin Bradford.