Italy … majestic and simple, serene and emotional, harmonious with its antiquity and modernity… shares its mystery and magnificence of treasures and increases its magnetism every second. The connoisseurs of art, romantics, pilgrims, gourmets and tourists rush here with the dream “to merge with the history, worship sacred places, escape from daily routine life and enjoy delicious taste”. Those who have a chance to visit Italy, after coming back home can share their moment by saying: “when I was in Italy…”
Italy is the museum under the sky, where each stone absorbed by the history, and where you can find a masterpiece of painting or sculpture in every rural church. Any existed ruin is a hard work of restorers. It is a place, where creations of the great masters are spread across the Apennine peninsula.
Character and lifestyle of Italians combine paradoxes and contradictions. The main features of world-view is simply seen in Italians’ love to live. . Italian pursuit of pleasure reflected in everything from cuisine to super cars. The country associated with heroes, saints, poets, sailors.
The important thing for Italians is the desire to save ‘bella figura’- intention to look good and to be on the top. Today “Bella figura” has more broad meaning besides outer beauty. The desire to be “on the top” related to private and public life of Italians, – as well as to policymaking and economy level. This approach is part of Italian soul – it is not surprise. What else can we expect from the country which created the beauty during the centuries? Imagine the picture when beautiful Italian lady, wearing a scarf that flutters in the wind, sits into luxury race car ‘Made in Maranello’ to drive for Tiramisù in the nearest cake shop. … Mamma mia! Bellissimo!
Italian cuisine is another case of bella vita. Its sweet smell is filled with breeze of warm sea, fragrance of herbs and roughness of the fruits, red-ripe on the sunshine. It is extremely diverse, its recipes are widely known around the world, pizza and spaghetti became the sign of cosmopolitanism.
But for Italians the food is not just an “eccentricity” of their identity. Together with painting, music and architecture, it is an integral part of their history. Italian cuisine has defined this nation. Even French cuisine, owes its grandeur to Catherine Marie de’ Medici, Queen of France, Italian by origin and born in Florence.
Marie de’ Medici, daughter of Francesco I de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, rich fiancée and niece of a Pope, conquered Paris not only with her splendid dowry, but also with numberof cooks, bakers and confectioners, including butler and, in modern language – innovative cookware.
The Queen Medici created outside parks, opened the ballet for French, gathered a huge library, brought into fashion, the high heeled shoes and slim corsets from whalebone with lace-ups, underwear, invented the prototype of lipstick and introduced the rule of personal hygiene. It can be stated that heritage of Tuscan princess, well-known daughter of the Renaissance, predetermined, not only the charm of French cuisine, but the image of sophisticated Frenchwoman, with whom you can go to Italian restaurant. Oh-la-la 🙂
Undoubtedly, Italy is the cradle of the Renaissance and motherland of Petrarch, Dante, Galileo Galilee, Giordano Bruno, Raphael and Leonardo da Vinci, the Renaissance brought the revolutionary changes in medicine and pharmacy in Middle Age Europe. Their development is linked with rich traditions of ancient Rome and heritage of the legendary doctor and pharmacist Claudius Galen (c. 130 AD – c. 210 AD), and the incredible step in time of human genius awakening, which survived and multiplied now.
No wonder that in 2014 Bloomberg put the health care system in Italy on the third place in the world with efficiency indicator-76.3; and France was on eighth place as the next European country with efficiency 64.6.
Modern Italy has rich experience, strong culture and powerful production base in pharmaceutics, which enabled the industry to obtain the benefits based on the significant opportunities for growth and improvement.
Currently, in terms of manufacture (both in total and per capita) Italian pharmaceutical industry is on the second place in Europe, and on the first place in terms of export – 70% of Italian products are sold outside of Italy. Nowadays, the pharmaceutical sector of the country has 200 companies, 174 factories, and give job for about 62000 000 specialists.
According to the market analysts, the leadership of Italy in pharmaceutics is due to biotechnology, which is the core of modern pharmaceutics. The significant contribution of Apennine pharmacists for transformation of human knowledge into clinical practice as well as development of different drugs have allowed to create new “individual” drugs considering the peculiarities of human genetic structure. Italian drugs are well known and at the forefront of advanced science-intensive technologies. Many of them are represented in developing and perspective pharmaceutical markets, including Uzbekistan, since it is potential market with favorable climate for investment activity!
Currently, 32 enterprises with participation of Italian investors are active in Uzbekistan, including 5 – with 100% of foreign capital. The cultural cooperation, as well as in education sphere develops progressively.
The pharmaceutical industry in Uzbekistan as in Italy is considered as one of the basic sectors of the economy since the high-quality medicine and nation health for the Government is the main component for successful socio-economic development.
For the pharmaceutical industry of Uzbekistan the 2016 became one of the most important phases in its development, where the number of laws and regulations have been issued that improves the legislation on drug commerce and pharmaceutical activities and strengthen the legal guarantees to provide the population with the highly efficient and safe drugs and medicine.
The Decree of the President of Uzbekistan from 31.10.2016 “On measures for further improvement of provision of population with medicines and medical supplies” where the following amount of limited profit margins have been set for the pharmaceutical products:
- wholesale – not more than 15% of the purchase price;
- retail sale – not more than 20% of the wholesale price,
The leader of the country made a wise and significant decision to set a fixed price (from January 1, 2017) to 167 socially important drugs and 22 medical products of local and foreign producers, which are widely used in the medical practice of Uzbekistan.
Accordingly it gives a distinct advantage over other producers to the Italian pharmaceutical industry representatives, the main feature of which is to make the most advanced technological products. Before the representatives of private business with high profit margins, set the ceiling prices, but starting from 2017 the pricing of pharmaceutical products in Uzbekistan became strictly regulated and controlled by the government. It means that high-quality products will become more affordable for consumers of Uzbekistan and, consequently, the demand will also increase into other volumes!
Given the fact that today the population of Uzbekistan is more than 32 million, where the annual population growth is 1.7 %.Currently the pharmaceutical industry of Uzbekistan is represented only by 146 enterprises and drug producers: 4 foreign enterprises, 21 joint ventures. Undoubtedly, the Italian pharm producers can rely and develop their activity.
The relationship between manufacturers and regulatory bodies cannot be simplified in health sector – as in every developed country, the pharmaceutical market of Uzbekistan is regulated by a large number of laws, regulations, and guidelines to guarantee the quality, efficiency and security. In addition, the registration process of drug, medical equipment and food supplement seems quite difficult since many registration steps require a specific knowledge and practical skills of interaction with the government institution which means – significant resources and time.
In order to solve these issues effectively, the manufacturers, usually searching for the consulting companies which traditionally offer the standard range of services, including:
- Registration and/or re-registration of products
- Collection and acquisition of required documentation / preparation of dossier
Currently, there are a big number of companies that offer services for the registration of pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, cosmetic products and veterinary products in Uzbekistan.
But, PHARM GROUP is the most experienced company which sets the tone and provides highly qualified services over the past 14 years. Moreover, besides the traditional consulting services, the experts of PHARM GROUP, having substantive knowledge and experience in the area of registration, provides the services for direct representation of producer’s interest in the State registration/certification bodies and preclinical and clinical trials organizations.
The unquestionable advantage of PHARM GROUP over other consulting companies is that the specialists of the company carry out the registration procedure on the turnkey basis and providing the following additional services: translation of documents, submission of dossier to the regulatory bodies, customs clearance of product samples, etc. Based on the deep theoretical knowledge and practical experience of the specialists, we can safely say that PHARM GROUP will effectively support the interests of Italian pharmaceuticals and medical equipment manufacturers and provide them Dolce vita in Uzbekistan. The heritage of Renaissance with elegance, quality and reliability of “made in Italy” prepared the basis for bilateral relations.
Jamshid Ganiev
Regulatory Director of Pharmaceuticals, Food Supplements, Medical Equipment and Veterinary products
PHARM GROUP project of UBI Consulting, Uzbekistan