A new export-oriented pharmaceutical manufacturing company is expected to start operating from Malta next year, employing 60 people, a figure that should double within three years.
Pharmacare Premium is investing €10 million on its new plant in Malta and will start building its new factory in Ħal Far later this year.
The company manufactures generic pharmaceutical products and high-potency generics. The plant will manufacture oncology, hormonal and immunosuppressant preparations and is eyeing several markets to export its products.
The project, a joint venture between Palestinian-German Pharmacare Ltd Europe and Malta-registered Pharma Group Ltd, is the first pharmaceutical company with Maltese shareholding.
Malta's EU membership, euro adoption and the island's strategic geographical location were described by Pharmacare PLC chairman Bassim Khoury as key elements in deciding to locate in Malta.
He also praised Malta's highly-qualified and flexible human resources and the quality and extent of foreign languages spoken on the island.
Finance Minister Tonio Fenech expressed satisfaction that the company was setting up shop in Malta despite the turbulent global economy.
He said the island was still attracting high-profile investments generating high-quality jobs. Malta Enterprise was crucial in attracting this investment to Malta and guaranteeing its loans.
The Sunday Times reported that Mr Fenech had to intervene directly with the investors to secure the deal. According to sources, Malta was facing stiff competition from Greece for the investment before senior officials from Malta Enterprise entered the negotiations.
The investors are likely to announce another project in the pharmaceutical sector later this year.
Among the shareholders of Pharmacare PLC, the mother company of Pharmacare Europe, is German pharmaceutical company Grünenthal Gmbh, which will be remembered for the Thalidomide tragedy in the 1950s.
Thalidomide was developed by the company in 1954 and used as the active substance in the sleeping pill Contergan, which, according to the company itself, caused the "greatest tragedy in the history of the German pharmaceutical industry".
According to information on the company's website, about 5,000 children were born with deformities at the end of the 1950s. Some 2,800 victims are still alive in Germany.