Six decades of building Orion Pharma

Orion Pharma now manufactures more than 15 crore pieces of medicine a month and exports over 10 crore pieces yearly. It operates two factories and has a workforce of around 2,850 people, with its products reaching 20 countries, according to company data. Those numbers tell part of the story. The other part is how the company got there. The business traces its origins to 1965, with commercial production beginning the following year. A major step came in 1994, when Orion Infusion Ltd was listed on the Dhaka Stock Exchange. The company later became a public limited company in 2010 and expanded its presence in the capital market. Exporting was another important turning point. Orion Pharma began exporting pharmaceutical products to Nepal in 2003. What started with one market has since developed into a network spanning parts of Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Europe. Its listed export markets include Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Kosovo, the Philippines, Nigeria, Nepal, Guatemala and Ethiopia. The company's entry into Kosovo in 2019 was a notable milestone. Orion Pharma says it became the first national pharmaceutical company from Bangladesh to export to the market. ❝We began by fulfilling the needs of our local market, and today we are thriving well beyond the borders of Bangladesh, reaching patients across Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Europe. Our journey to new destinations continues. Built on quality, innovation and trust, our promise is to take Bangladesh's pharmaceutical excellence to the world and make world-class healthcare accessible to everyone, because quality never ends.❞ —Zareen Karim, Managing Director, Orion Pharma LTD. For a pharmaceutical manufacturer, however, entering a new country is not simply a matter of finding buyers. Medicines have to meet regulatory requirements that vary from market to market, while manufacturers have to maintain consistency in quality and production. Orion Pharma's own history shows the gradual build-up of that regulatory experience. It received ISO 9001:2000 certification in 2003 and later obtained ISO 9001:2015 certification in 2018. Its operations have also involved regulatory authorities in markets such as Sri Lanka and Ethiopia, alongside Bangladesh's Directorate General of Drug Administration (DGDA). At home, the company has built a broad portfolio of medicines, with products including Deslor, Frulac, Etopride, Exor, Rivo, Coralmax, Dexlion, Azalid, Olmesafe, Clognil, Rovex, Meromax, Novelta, Hedex, Timex, Linastar and Truso. The scale of production suggests a business that is no longer dependent only on the domestic market. More than 10 crore pieces going out of the country yearly is a significant share of its manufacturing volume, making exports an important part of the company's operations. But the road ahead is not without pressure. Orion Pharma itself lists rising production costs, declining reinvestment and the impact of Bangladesh's LDC graduation among the challenges facing the business. It has also called for more balanced healthcare policies and greater policy support for the pharmaceutical sector. These are not issues unique to Orion Pharma. Bangladesh's pharmaceutical companies have spent years building an industry that can supply a large share of the country's medicine demand while increasingly looking overseas. The next stage will require them to compete in markets where production costs, regulatory requirements and investment capacity matter more. One area Orion Pharma highlights is the development of the domestic API industry. Active pharmaceutical ingredients are the key components that give medicines their therapeutic effect, and a stronger local API base could reduce the industry's dependence on imported inputs. The company also points to implementation of the Drugs Act and better access to information about available medicines and therapeutic options as areas requiring attention. The company has also maintained activities outside its core manufacturing operations. In 2016, it introduced the Orion Medical Scholarship Programme as part of its CSR activities. It has since received recognition including the ICSB National Award. Still, the most interesting part of Orion Pharma's story is its transformation as a business. From a company that began manufacturing in the 1960s, it has developed into an organisation with two factories, thousands of employees, a large monthly production base and an export network covering 20 countries. The company is now operating at a scale where maintaining growth is likely to depend as much on efficiency and investment as on expanding its product list or finding new markets. That makes the coming years important for Orion Pharma. The company has already spent decades building manufacturing capacity and establishing a presence in overseas markets. With production costs rising and the country's trading environment changing, its next challenge will be turning that established scale into sustained competitiveness. For a pharmaceutical business that has been around for 61 years, that is a very different challenge from the one it faced when it first started making medicines in Bangladesh.