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Taro Pharmaceutical Industries

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תרו תעשיה רוקחית
www.taro.co.il

Taro is a multinational, science-based pharmaceutical company. The company develops, manufactures and markets prescription and OTC pharmaceutical products, primarily in the United States, Canada and Israel.

The compnay is one of the leading pharmaceutical companies in the Israeli market. In 2019, 6% of its $669,893 million in revenues were generated in the Israeli market. Taro, similar to other Israeli companies, profits from Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territory which structure the captivity of its economy and people.

The Paris Protocol, the Oslo Accord’s economic annex and the main document regulating the financial relations between Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), imposes a taxation envelope on both economies. In addition to Israel’s control of borders this outlines continued Palestinian dependency on Israeli policies, customs laws and services for the import and export of goods. This dependency has an adverse impact on the development of the Palestinian industry, including the pharmaceutical industry. In particular, various hindrances generate extra costs that harm the development of local industry: the burden of annual licensing of imported raw materials, the costs of back-to-back deliveries to and from the West Bank and Gaza, the costs of shipping drugs in bulk via Jordan, the exclusion of large Arab markets as well as in Israel, and the inability of the Gazan industry to develop and expand due to an imposed crippling sea-land-air siege since 2006.

In contrast, Tora enjoys easy access to the Palestinian market, free of customs taxes and checkpoint. Taro’s agents do not have to amend any of their products in order to sell them in the oPt. Thus, the company can sell its non-Arabic labeled products on the Palestinian market.  Taro meets little to no competition from the cheaper generic drug industry, as a result of the Israeli Ministry of Health restrictions on drug registration in Israel and their restriction on imports into the oPt.

For further information, check our report on the Pharmaceutical Industry: Captive economy



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