Ümit Dereli is secretary general of the Turkish Association of Research-Based Pharmaceutical Companies (AIFD), which has 35 multinational member companies that together account for almost 50 percent of the Turkish market. In this interview, he discusses the impact of COVID-19 on the research-based, innovative, pharmaceutical industry in Turkey, AIFD initiatives to foster the biotech ecosystem, and how Turkey has set in government policy papers the objective for the pharmaceutical industry to be globally competitive in all links of the global value chain.
The pandemic reinforced the importance of manufacturing, but we need to think beyond the local market towards exports. There is a new understanding of the pharma industry in Turkey and the value it can bring
