PHARMAQ established in Central America
In October, PHARMAQ established the subsidiaries PHARMAQ CA Panama Inc. and PHARMAQ COSTA RICA S.A as part of the company's global strategy. The operations in Central America will be run from the new PHARMAQ office in Panama City.
PHARMAQ Panama will be the hub for the company's activities in the region. Earlier this year, Mario Aguirre joined PHARMAQ as Regional Manager for Central America. He will be based in the company's office in Panama City. PHARMAQ's ambition is to introduce superior fish health products and services to the tilapia fish farming industry as well as to other farmed warm water species in the region.
Latin America produce 400.000 MT farmed tilapia per year, still not enough to meet the domestic demand in some countries such as Mexico, Brazil and Colombia. Additionally there is a substantial export of tilapia fillets to USA.
One of the main challenges to the tilapia industry in Latin America is production losses due to streptococcus disease caused by the bacteria Streptococcus agalactiae. Development of an efficient vaccine against this disease is of a high priority to PHARMAQ and extensive field trials have been conducted in Costa Rica. New product development projects will be established to meet requirements from the fish farming industry.
"I am very happy to have Mario on board to drive the business locally in closed cooperation with PHARMAQ's team in Oslo and Chile" says CEO Morten Kr. Nordstad.
Mario Aguirre has more than 30 years of experience in aquaculture business in Central-/Latin America. This includes expertise in shrimp and tilapia faming as well as in management, marketing, technical support and sales experience in health and nutrition of aquatic animals. Since 2005 he has been developing markets for aquatic animal health products in Central America and other Latin American countries. He is educated as a Marine biologist and holds a MBA degree from Venezuela.
