KUALA LUMPUR: Pharmaceutical company Hovid Bhd, which had its manufacturing licences revoked by the health ministry in January, has been granted permission to restart its operations at its plant in Chemor, Perak.

In a filing with Bursa Malaysia yesterday, Hovid said it has received the manufacturing licence for its Chemor plant from the National Pharmaceutical Control Bureau under the health ministry. The licence is valid from March 6, 2017 and is to be renewed three months prior to the expiry date on Dec 31, 2017.

However, it added that the manufacturing licence for its Ipoh plant is still pending the completion of corrective actions to comply with the Current Good Manufacturing Practice as required by the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Department (NPRA). “[The corrective actions] are currently in progress,” the group added.

Hovid said it targets to complete the necessary corrective actions at the Ipoh plant by the end of March 2017, and submit the necessary reports to NPRA immediately thereafter.

“The re-issuance of the licence will be subject to NPRA being satisfied with our corrective actions taken. We estimate to receive the decision from NPRA for our Ipoh plant by [the] end of May 2017,” it noted.

On Jan 9, Hovid had to cease all manufacturing activities at its Perak facilities after the health ministry revoked its manufacturing licences over a compliance issue. This followed a recall of its Ternolol 50mg film-coated tablets — which are prescribed for hypertension treatment — due to a labelling mix-up. The batch contained boxes labelled as “Ternolol 50” but some of the blisters referred to the product as “Ternolol Tab 100mg”.

However, its distribution subsidiaries in Malaysia, Hong Kong and the Philippines continued to market and sell the existing stocks held by them respectively during the revocation period.

Both Hovid’s plants in Chemor and Ipoh produce pharmaceutical products. Its Ipoh plant also produces Hovid’s signature “Ho Yan Hor” herbal tea brand of products.

Following the suspension, Hovid shares fell 22% from 36.5 sen on Jan 4 to a more-than-three-year low of 28.5 sen on Jan 16, wiping out some RM65 million in market capitalisation.

The stock has since recovered to close at 31.5 sen yesterday, bringing it a market capitalisation of RM258.47 million.