EMS enters into US$ 100 million partnership with Heber Biotec
Valor Econômico
The EMS group will announce this Monday a US$ 100 million agreement with Heber Biotec, from Cuba, for the establishment of a mixed company with the purpose of turning Brazil into a platform for the development of innovative products. Heber Biotec will provide products, technology and patents developed by the Cuban Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology. EMS will add its productive process technology, infrastructure creation capacity, logistics and global distribution of medicines. The partnership also foresees investments of the Brazilian laboratory on research and development of innovative and high efficiency drugs.
The goal is to offer new drugs, bringing to Brazil production technologies and, at the same time, support to the researches already carried out in Cuba and to the growth of the sector in that country.
The execution of the agreement will be mediated by the Brazilian Trade and Investment Promotion Agency (Apex-Brazil), which has followed up and supported the negotiation process between Heber Biotec and EMS, promoting contacts between both the companies through the Business Center of the Agency, located in Havana. The process of approval of the mixed corporation by the Cuban and Brazilian Governments should begin in April. The forecast is that the first drugs of the partnership should be available in the market in 2 to 5 years.
In the last two months, EMS entered into partnerships with a Chinese and another Cuban company. On December 9, the company signed a technical and scientific agreement with the Shanghai Biomabs laboratory for the development and production of monoclonal antibodies, marking the entrance in the segment of biopharmaceuticals. In November, the announced partnership was Quimefa's. This agreement sealed the transfer of technology for the manufacture of drugs in Brazil and the sale of Brazilian drugs to Cuba.