Friday, August 02, 2013

Health projects to create 1,599 jobs

The Star Online

PUTRAJAYA: The Health Ministry has announced five new projects under the Healthcare National Key Economic Area (NKEA) worth RM388.1mil with a projected gross national income (GNI) of RM445.2mil.
Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr S. Subramaniam said they would create 1,599 new jobs by 2020.
The first project is ABio Orthopaedics which is investing RM224.5mil to expand contract manufacturing of orthopaedic devices in Penang.
The second project involves Karl Mueller Scientific Sdn Bhd, another Penang-based company which would be investing RM1.4mil to produce single or disposable medical devices and accessories.
“The third project is by Kotra Pharma which is investing RM60mil to produce sterile injectable or infusion products.
“RB Lifescience Sdn Bhd is investing RM94.5mil to build a new pharmaceutical plant for the production of pMDI inhalers and oncology injectable generic medicines,” he said at the Healthcare NKEA progress update here yesterday.
Dr Subramaniam said another project is by Sima Medical, involving an investment of RM7.7mil to develop orthopaedic clinical devices.
He said since the inception of the Economic Transformation Pro­gramme (ETP) in 2010, a total of 22 projects under the Healthcare NKEA have been announced.
“These projects are from 10 Entry Point Projects (EPPs) with a total investment worth RM3.38bil, a projected GNI of RM5.53bil and 23,847 jobs by 2020.
“Ten of the projects have been completed while 12 are under implementation,” he said.
Meanwhile, his deputy Datuk Seri Dr Hilmi Yahya told the Dewan Negara that the ministry had carried out routine checks on premises selling medicine to combat the sale of counterfeit medicine.
He said the ministry also enforced tight monitoring by placing pharmacy enforcement officers at the country’s entry points such as ports, airports and border checkpoints to prevent any counterfeit and unregistered products from being brought into the country.

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