What is the activity of MEK consulting?

MEK Consulting is a regional contract research organization, founded in 1999, with offices in Athens and Beirut and operations in Greece, Turkey, Middle East and North Africa. We are committed to providing pharmaceutical, biotechnology and clinical research organizations with local expertise for their clinical research requirements working to the highest international professional and ethical standards. We have the unique combination of providing locally based people with international working standards.

What is the activity of MEK consulting?

MEK Consulting is a regional contract research organization, founded in 1999, with offices in Athens and Beirut and operations in Greece, Turkey, Middle East and North Africa. We are committed to providing pharmaceutical, biotechnology and clinical research organizations with local expertise for their clinical research requirements working to the highest international professional and ethical standards. We have the unique combination of providing locally based people with international working standards.

What are the biggest challenges you faced starting up and how did you overcome them?

Like any novel Idea in a niche market, all entrepreneurs are bound to face the same problems. One is to convince the clients to include the Middle East in their projects and the second is to find a way to implement these projects in an environment that has little or no legislations governing our research industry.

As the logic dictates we needed to resolve the local obstacle before going to our potential clients, so we researched all the laws in all the Middle Eastern countries till we found the proper ways to import investigational drugs into the region (Needless to say the amount of bureaucracy involved in this part of the world).

Once internal issue resolved we turned our attention to attracting clients. It took 5 years of face to face meetings with potential clients all over Europe & North America, we had to promote the healthcare system in our region and, at the same time, establish confidence in our training system so that our employees can be entrusted the task of managing big multinational projects. The breakthrough came in 2004 with a high profile study where the two Lebanese hospitals involved ranked 3 & 6 out of 200 participating hospitals.
The hardship of the early years made MEK Consulting the pioneer in the Middle East, in the past year 8 new CROs were established in the MENA region benefiting from the lessons learned by us.

What do you enjoy most from your stay in Berytech?

The most we enjoy at Berytech is the geographical location. Outside the pollution/traffic zone and the academic environment

Where do you see your company in the coming five years?

Presently MEK offices in Lebanon & Greece and home based employees in Turkey, UAE & Jordan. Within the next five years we are planning on having legal entities and offices in Turkey, Jordan and a minimal probability for UAE.