Bulgarian pharmaceutical giant Sopharma has formally launched the construction of its new factory, an investment worth BGN 70 M, in Sofia on Thursday.

The groundbreaking ceremony was carried out by Sopharma CEO Ognyan Donev and Prime Minister Boyko Borisov, with several ministers and foreign ambassadors also attending.

The company has pointed out that the construction of new factories demonstrates the revived dynamics of the Bulgarian economy deriving from the companies investing in innovative manufacturing and modernization.

The new facility will be producing up to 4 billion pills per year of over 100 different types of medicines, and will employ 420 people once it is completed.

The company plans to complete its modernization program with the construction of the new factory, which will be its 13th production plant that meets the standards of "Good Manufacturing Practice" or "GMP", a quality system covering the manufacture and testing of pharmaceutical products.

Sopharma boasts a boost of its exports, with stable positions on its traditional foreign markets and growth in its exports on markets it entered more recently such as Turkey, Serbia, Austria and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The company recently announced it would open a subsidiary in Poland, and it is about to complete its procedures for registration in China and Finland. Sopharma is responsible for the bulk of Bulgaria's exports of pharmaceutical products.

Sopharma has already received a certificate for a Class "A" Investor by the InvestBulgaria Agency for its project for a new plant. The new facility will feature energy efficient buildings and energy-saving technologies.

The pharmaceuticals manufacturing is a traditionally strong sector developed in Bulgaria during the communist period as a branch of the country's chemical industry.

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