HOME BREAKING NEWS Essential Drugs Company Limited (EDCL) Managing Director’s one-year achievements, plans and the...
DHAKA, BANGLADESH: Md. Abdus Samad Mridha is the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Essential Drugs Company Limited (EDCL). He is an international pharmaceutical scientist. After completing his Bachelor of Pharmacy and Master of Pharmacy degrees in Pharmacy from Dhaka University, he worked as a production specialist in several pharmaceutical companies in Bangladesh, including EDCL. Later, he worked as a pharmaceutical scientist in large international pharmaceutical companies in various countries of the world, including America and Canada, for 30 years in drug production, quality control, and product development, and was able to establish himself as a successful international pharmacist.
After the fall of the Awami League government (After August 5, 2024) in the face of student protests, the Ministry of Health of the interim government of Bangladesh changed the Managing Director of Essential Drugs Company Limited and appointed Md. Abdus Samad Mridha, an honest, skilled, and experienced pharmacist with international pharmaceutical management experience, as the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer to revive the damaged EDCL by eliminating all previous irregularities and corruption.
Developed countries of the world hire talented people from Bangladesh for the development of their countries, but the Ministry of Health has shown prudence by bringing back a pharmacist with international experience to Bangladesh and giving him the responsibility of EDCL.
While in Bangladesh, Md. Abdus Samad Mridha was associated with student politics, he served as the General Secretary of Dhaka University’s Fazlul Haque Hall branch of Chhatra Dal and the Treasurer and Joint General Secretary of the Central Committee of Bangladesh Nationalist Chhatra Dal.
Serving people is in his blood. In continuation of that, at the invitation of the Bangladesh government, he took charge as the Managing Director of Essential Drugs Company Limited, ignoring the burden of his debt and responsibility to the motherland and the luxurious life and sky-high salary allowances of America, with the aim of contributing to changing the health sector of Bangladesh and delivering quality government medicines to the doorsteps of the common people of all walks of life.
He has already completed one year as Managing Director, his visionary, skilled, experienced and successful professionalism has been revealed in his management, free from political influence. In the past one year, he has taken EDCL to the peak of historical success by breaking corruption, irregularities, syndicates and reforming procurement, production, quality control, structural changes and reforms.
About 600 inefficient manpower has been laid off in this reform, the corrupt raw material and packaging material supply chain of the previous government has been broken. The owners of private pharmaceutical companies have been hit hard by the reform by reducing the price of medicines. He is facing conspiracy by about 600 inefficient manpower who have been laid off from their jobs.
Md. Abdus Samad Mridha If we review his success, it can be seen that Essential Drugs Company Limited has completed the biggest and most successful reform of the interim government.
He took charge and set up the manpower by doing work study/work measurement of the machine production capacity per hour of all the factories and determined additional manpower beyond the setup of 2000 and more, which was appointed under the political pressure of the previous government, and laid off about 600 unskilled manpower from that additional unnecessary manpower, as a result of which about 32 crore taka has been saved on salary in the past one year and despite laying off so much manpower, the production of medicines has increased by 59 crore taka in the fiscal year 2024-2025 compared to the previous one. The Managing Director is constantly facing the wrath of the conspiracy of these laid off officials and employees.
The Managing Director and his management have increased the sense of responsibility and accountability of all officers and employees through strong administrative capacity, motivation counseling, and training. And through the reorganization of man, machine, and material, the efficiency and working hours of officers and employees at all levels have increased, resulting in a massive increase in EDCL’s productivity.
By increasing the starting and finishing time of work every day and reducing the downtime in between, the working hours of each officer and employee have been increased by one hour (WORKING TIME INCREASING AND LAG TIME DECREASING). As a result, 611781 working hours have been increased in the last one year, saving EDCL about 8 crore, 74 lakh taka in the last one year. At the same time, overtime has also been reduced by about 8 crore taka in a year.
Due to efficient management, toll manufacturing has been reduced by about 57 crore in the financial year 2024-2025 compared to the previous one. Although 33 items of toll manufacturing were done earlier, currently 12 items of toll manufacturing have been done to meet the demand of MSR, which is about one-third of the previous amount, and toll manufacturing will be phased out through installation of some machineries and equipments.
He said that due to the breaking of the previous syndicate in the procurement process of EDCL, a larger number of bidders are participating in the tender at competitive prices, due to which it has been possible to purchase quality raw materials at much lower prices than before. Thousands of dollars are being saved by purchasing various raw materials such as isopropyl alcohol, meropenem, Maize Starch, Cefixime Tri Hydrate. About 26.69 crore taka has been saved in one year in the procurement sector alone.
He has brought about a major change in the procurement process. He has reduced cash purchase and increased the committee-based procurement process (Tender Purchase) through committees and has made arrangements for the quick release of outstanding bills of local agents without any harassment, which was earlier held up through corruption. As a result of the dissolution of the previous three or four supplier syndicates, he is being subjected to various propaganda and conspiracies.
Managing Director Md. A.Samad Mridha has reduced the prices of 33 essential medicines by about 50 percent. The process of reducing the prices of the remaining medicines is underway. Some vested interests are making various conspiracies to remove the Managing Director for reduce the prices of essential medicines.
He has reduced the amount of solvent to reduce the cost and production time while maintaining USP, BP and GMP. He has also reduced the unnecessary excipients that are used in the manufacture of medicines. He is applying the experience of working in the United States, Canada and other countries to EDCL.
Mr. Managing Director is working on the EDCL General Project, Vaccine Production Project as per FDA guidelines in Sirajdikhan Upazila, the work on this project is about to start very soon. If this project is completed within the next three years, it will be possible to export vaccines and other medicines to different countries of the world, fulfilling the needs of Bangladesh.
The process of setting up the anti-venom, anti-rabies, dengue vaccine project has been started, which will start production very quickly while maintaining international standards. At the same time, preparations are being made to build a 9-storey building in Tejgaon, in which some production units will be immediately transferred to increase production by maintaining GMP.
Contraceptive pill and saline production has started in the Gopalganj branch project of Essential Drugs Company Limited. Saline machineries worth 114 crore taka were lying under the open sky for the last 6 years. Md. Abdus Samad Mridha started production after completing IQ (INSTALLATION QUALIFICATION), OQ (OPERATIONAL QUALIFICATION), PQ (PERFORMANCE QUALIFICATION).
To digitalize EDCL, the work of ERP software and E-Tendering is going on very fast to simplify the work of production, warehouse and quality control departments, which will save manpower and make it possible to do a lot of work with less manpower. E-Tendering will bring more transparency in the procurement process.
Md. A. Samad Mridha is working on the expansion, development, modification and renovation of Bogra Plant, Bogura Cephalosporin Plant, Gopalganj Project, Khulna Plant and Madhupur Plant.
The production of the production units that have not been completed and have been stagnant in the last 15 years can be started, so that the company can be profitable by adding new products.
He has also completed many other undisclosed internal renovation works, which are historic renovations done in such a short time in the history of EDCL. As a result of completing this adventurous renovation program, unlimited conspiracies have descended on him as the Managing Director.
