Companies in Saudi Arabia prefer to source from European manufacturers and Sudair Pharma was no exception. Launched in 2014, the project aimed to become a pharmaceutical manufacturing facility that would develop drugs to combat chronic and life-threatening illnesses all over the Middle East. Fabtech never expected to have any sort of role to play with this project as word was out Sudair had no intention of working with Asian pharma engineering companies.

Until someone we had worked with on another project in Algeria played matchmaker. They introduced us to Sudair as a company that executed complex projects that no one wanted to take on in parts of the world no one wanted to go. The introduction was enough to pique the Sudair management team’s interest and they invited us to pitch – the only non-European company in the fray. They sent a team over to inspect our manufacturing facilities and assess our technical teams. They assessed our references. The rest, as they say, is history.

Impressed with our capabilities, Sudair awarded us the entire low side cleanroom, HVAC, clean utilities and clean infrastructure turnkey project for the production facility of 6285 sqm while the rest would be sourced from European companies.

All was not smooth sailing though. While work on the project was on in full swing political challenges resulted in all funds to this project getting blocked. Despite the uncertainty, and the ensuing delays, we soldiered on and completed 95% of the work with only validation still to go. While the European manufacturers supplied the machinery, some of them refused to install. Since the project had been delayed, they now expected a huge sum to remobilise their installation team. We used our manufacturing capability to complete the installation at a fraction of what Sudair would have been compelled to pay the European manufacturers. The facility, completed against all odds, is now fully operational and specialises in the manufacture of oncology OSDs and Injectables.