19-Apr-16 Walgreens Boots Alliance has bought a 15% stake in Russian pharmacy chain 36,6. In return Walgreens Boots Alliance has sold its Russian distributor Alliance Healthcare Russia to 36,6. The country’s commercial drug market can be very promising for foreign investors. [image: Newseurope]

14-Apr-16 The Jeddah-based Islamic Development Bank (IDB) has signed a SAR200 mn (USD53 mn) agreement to provide medical care for poor rural people in India, funding 15 mobile health clinics. The money is part of a SAR1 bn fund which will also deploy 60 mobile clinics in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Yemen, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. [image: Arab News]

12-Apr-16 Emerging markets focused bank Standard Chartered has launched five eye care projects costing USD1.6 mn to bring in innovation and strengthen the delivery of eye-care to India by 2019. In India, around 15 million people are thought to be blind, with cataract the most avoidable blindness (63%), followed by refractive error (20%) and glaucoma (5.8%). Yet 80% of blindness is avoidable with the right treatment. [image: Standard Chartered Bank]

07-Apr-16 Dutch consumer electronics and healthcare giant Philips is looking to join the ranks of other global Fortune 500 companies in leveraging India's rapidly evolving startup ecosystem and is initiating moves to set up a venture fund that will look to invest in Indian healthcare technology startups. [image: Economic Times]

30-Mar-16 Major Malaysia pharma company Pharmaniaga Bhd expects its business in Indonesia to be profitable this year with a 1-2% growth in terms of contribution to its overall revenue. “In Indonesia currently, we have got common products manufactured there and we got high-end generic products in Malaysia, like cardiovascular products, that we can easily export,” managing director Datuk Farshila Emran said. [image: Pharmaniaga Bhd]