Merck KGaA expands diabetes presence in Middle East with new education program

Setting up camp in the Middle East is the trend du jour in Big Pharma, and Merck KGaA is expanding its footprint there by launching its new diabetes education program in the United Arab Emirates.

The company, along with the Emirates Diabetes Society (EDS), is kicking off a 5-year program in the country to train medical, nursing and pharmacy undergraduates and primary healthcare providers about the disease. The initiative, dubbed Merck Capacity Advancement Program, will help improve awareness, early diagnosis and prevention of diabetes in the UAE. Around 19.2% of the country's population is living with the disease, signaling an "urgent need" for teaching programs aimed toward decreasing its prevalence, Dr. Mohamed Farghaly, a member of the UAE national guideline and national diabetes technical committees, said in a statement.

But Merck KGaA is also casting a broader net, rolling out the program in Africa, India and Indonesia. The company plans to further expand to other African and Asian countries this year to increase its diabetes platform, Rasha Kelej, Merck Serono's head of Global Business Responsibility and Market Development, said in a statement. Merck hopes to train more than 5,000 medical students through the initiative by the end of 2015, and 12,000 students by the end of 2018 as it includes more African and Asian universities.

The program comes at a pivotal moment, as drugmakers eye the Middle East as a region ripe for growth. Until last year, the UAE and other countries in the area had to import most of the diabetes treatments. Governments in the area started to offer economic incentives and set up diabetes partnerships with Big Pharma to help increase treatment options for patients. Companies such as AbbVie ($ABBV), Merck ($MRK) and Pfizer ($PFE) are jumping on the bandwagon, building manufacturing sites and distribution hubs and hiring staffers to promote diabetes care.

In 2012, Merck KGaA said it would team up with UAE-based Neopharma to manufacture some of its branded drugs for the regional market, including its Type 2 diabetes drug Glucophage. In 2013, Merck joined a venture to build a $93 million insulin plant in Bahrain, which is slated to open in the middle of 2015. AbbVie last year said it would work with the Arab Company for Pharmaceutical Products (Arabio) to manufacture blockbuster Humira and other products.

Not to be outdone, Pfizer is hard at work on a plant in Saudi Arabia to make a number of the company's drugs. The drugmaker expects to cut the ribbon on the facility this year.

- read the release

Special Report: Top 10 Drugmakers in Emerging Markets - Merck KGaA