The U.S. pharmaceutical pioneer Amgen invested $35 million in biotech medicine in Istanbul. Amgen Global Research and Development Director Thomas Felix said Turkey's expansion in pharmaceuticals is very important.
"If high value-added products are produced, Turkey will have a strategic importance for the region," Felix said.
The increase experienced in the domestic industry with the incentives issued by the government in a support program, which included the pharmaceutical industry among primary strategic products, world giants turned their eyes to Turkey.
Listed among the top 500 companies by Fortune magazine in 2016 with a turnover of $22.5 billion, Amgen purchased Mustafa Nevzat, Turkey's largest pharmaceutical company, in 2012 for $700 million.
Amgen made the largest investment in all areas at once in Turkey. With that it brought biotechnological and biosimilar production technology to Turkey. Amgen, which made an additional investment of $35 million in biotechnology in Istanbul facilities last year, chose Turkey as a hub in the region.
Felix stated that the global health sector is moving toward biotechnology.
"It is also very important for Turkey to be in an effort to become aware of it," he said. "When we look at the future of Turkey's pharmaceutical sector, we foresee that the actual need is to produce innovative and high value-added products."
He stressed that biological drugs, which are difficult to produce in complex structures, should be produced in the highest quality, adding that quality is also of vital importance in biosimilar products.
"We are continuously making additional investments in order to achieve this as a company prioritizing quality and to bring our production facilities here to Amgen standards," he continued. "For example, in order to contribute to the production of biotechnological drugs, we have recently invested $35 million in our production facility located in Yenibosna, Istanbul and commissioned our new production lines. We do this for our patients to produce high-quality biosimilar medicines that use the latest technology."
He said biotechnological drugs, which mean the transformation of proteins obtained by genetically engineering the DNA of the live cells into drugs, have been used in the treatment of more than 800 million patients worldwide.
Noting that biotech drugs are used in the treatment of diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, cancer, rare blood diseases, multiple sclerosis, osteoporosis and diabetes, he said biotech drugs will bring path-breaking developments to many diseases with new technologies.