NIB Officials Visit CIRIN Plant at Hattar

Mr. Rashid Qazi (RGM EBG), Mr. Usman Butt (Unit Manager), and Mr. Ayub (Credit Officer) from NIB Bank, Islamabad paid a visit to CIRIN's manufacturing facilities in Hattar. The visit was organized as part of steps to acquaint NIB’s EBG Team in Islamabad to the operations of CIRIN Pharmaceuticals. Both organizations have been exploring the possibility of striking a deal for working capital financing – that may further strengthen the momentum CIRIN has gained in recent past.

Mr. Munim Sultan Mir (Executive Director), Mr. Khwaja Abdul Basir (Sales Director), Mr. Ashraf Malik (Plant Manager), and Riaz Javeed Siddiki (Finance Manager), received the guests on behalf of CIRIN.

Mr. Qazi, along with his team members, took an hour long round of manufacturing facilities and express pleasure over - infrastructure the company was having. He, especially, praised the commitment level of members of CIRIN’s Production team – and said that he was impressed the way such elaborate production & quality management systems were being followed at the plant.

Mr. Munim also briefed the visitors about company’s history and future plans of the management. Mr. Qazi opined that with the sort of efforts management was putting in, it won’t take long for CIRIN to earn a place in leading pharmaceutical companies of Pakistan. Mr. Munim and Mr. Basir, thanked the visitors, on behalf of TeamCIRIN, for the confidence that NIB’s management reposed in CIRIN by formally offering credit facilities.

CIRIN Gets ISO9001: 2000 Certification for 2nd Term

It has been now 3 years since CIRIN was certified under ISO9001: 2000 back in 2004. The second certification audit was due in the month of January, 2008. This audit was conducted by a team of sernior auditors from SGS, consisting of Mr. Waqas Ali (Lead Auditor), Mr. Waseem Asif, and Mr. Nadeem Anwar.

The management is pleased to confirm that CIRIN was recommended for re-certification by the auditors upon successful completion of audit. The auditors in their closing meeting expressed their satisfaction on the adequacy of Quality Management System of the company as well as the implementation level. Mr. Nadeem stated that he had recently audited a few pharmaceutical units abroad, and he found CIRIN’s system at par with plants operating in advanced countries.

Mr. Ashraf Malik (Management Representative) of CIRIN thanked the auditors for their valuable feedback and praised his entire team for achieving such level of conformance that there was not a single non-conformance found throughout the audit activity.

Annual Meeting of Managers

Annual meeting of manager's was held at CIRIN Head Office in Rawalpindi to device strategies for 2008. The event was attended by all senior managers from Finance, Marketing, and Production.

Mr. Abdul Basir, in his opening remarks, intimated participants that Marketing Department had set high targets for themselves in 2008 and that they were excited about the pace of development at all levels. He expressed gratitude for unwavering and sincere support from all departments of the company during 2007.

Mr. Mushtaq Anjum, Senior Product Manager gave a comprehensive presentation about current standing of company's different products in their respective therapeutic classes and molecule groups. He also briefly touched upon future marketing strategies for the benefit of participants.

There was an extenive brainstorming session held at the end of event. It was an highly interactive session where everybody was given ample opportunity to speak his mind.

At the close of meeting, Mr. Munim Sultan Mir (Executive Director), expressed his pleasure on holding such a successful event and said that he looked forward to similar activities with regular frequency in future as well.

Mr. Munim stressed the importance of maintaining consistently high standards of quality - not in the products only - but everything that is related to CIRIN. He said that maintaining repute of a quality-proucer was a daunting task and every department of the organization should act insync with each other to achieve success - everytime.

The meeting was followed by lunch and group photos were taken.

Field Managers' 4-Day Annual Conference

Recently held 4-Day long Conference of field managers at CIRIN Head Office declared 2008 as the Turnaround Year for the company. This annual event was held to review performance during 2007 and chalkout plans for 2008.

Sales Director and Product Managers shared perfromance statistics with the participants and praised field force for their achievements. Mr. Abdul Basir stated that it took termendous efforts from every member to achieve a growth rate of over 36% against industy average of 12%. Keeping up with the high momentum gained in last two quarters of 2007 - the managers were very upbeat about the year ahead.

There are number of major improvements planned for year-2008 that may take company several steps ahead of competition. It was due to these cultural changes and the new outlook of entire field force, that participants suggested to call 2008 as the Turnaround Year.

New Corporate Website

CIRIN's corporate website has gone under a revision. This is new version of website comes exactly after one year of its redical upgrading in 2006.

The new website contains more material on the company, production processes, and quality control arrangements. However, the highlight of this website is detailed informtion about all products the company is producing. Following link will interest those who want to know more about company's products.

http://www.cirinpharma.com/Pharmaceutical_Products.htm

MyBank Officials pay CIRIN a Visit at Hattar:

A three member team of officials from MyBank's Regional Head Office (North) paid a visit to CIRIN’s production facilities at Hattar. This visit was arranged by CIRIN to share recent developments made by the company with its partner and to further strengthen the coordination between two organizations.

Mr. Zahid Pervez, Mr. Syed Kamran Arif, and Mr. Amir Malik from MyBank’s side witnessed production in different sections and spoke with different members of TeamCIRIN. They were impressed with the infrastructure CIRIN had maintained and the commitment level of its employees (at all levels). Mr. Zahid expressed that CIRIN had got all the ingredients of a successful organization and “TeamCIRIN is a winning combination”. He wished CIRIN success in time to come.

World Rabbies Day:

World Rabies Day was celebrated for the first time world over on Sep 08, 2007. Rabies being more relevant problem of a developing country like Pakistan requires equally strong actions from within the country. It is unfortunate that awareness about Rabies – a killer disease is lacking amongst masses more exposed to the threat. Hence, the country suffers loss of many valuable lives each year.

Now, CIRIN has joined the fight against this menace and has quickly assumed the leading role in running campaigns about awareness of available preventive as well as post-exposure treatment for Rabies. Recently launch of Abhayrab® was synchronized with the World Rabies Day. Not only that the company is making available an effective vaccine to the masses but also assisting relevant agencies in raising awareness level.

This is why CIRIN sponsored two programs in Islamabad / Rawalpindi and Peshawar on Sep 08, 2007. Islamabad’s program was organized at National Institute of Health under the supervision of Dr. Shahab A. Kazi, National Coordinator, Rabies Prevention Program, Ministry of Health, Government of Pakistan. CIRIN placed its stall where number of visitors were received and informed about threats and treatment of the disease. Considering it being first such event, the program was a success. The need is now to follow it up with similar awareness programs at country level.

Few snaps from the World Rabies Day Program: Sep 08, 2007