Kodak company received a government loan for the production of drugs
The American company Kodak was able to obtain government credit in the amount of 765 million dollars. These funds will be used to produce medicines. This amount was the first loan made under the law on defense production.
The repayment period of the government loan is 25 years and was issued by the organization, which finances the international development of the United States. It is expected that the money will be used to increase the volume of U.S. counterparts of foreign medicines, including hydroxychloroquine. Kodak will produce active pharmaceutical components for various drugs. The company plans to increase this line of business to 30-40% of the total volume of the structure. In turn, it will take about 3-4 years to launch large-scale production.
The White House hopes that the loan and cooperation with Kodak will reduce the U.S. dependence on foreign medicines, primarily products from China. Now China is the largest country that sells active pharmaceutical components for the production of drugs.
Eastman Kodak was founded in 1881 by George Eastman, and its success is due to the production of Brownie camera and film. The company was engaged in the production of everything necessary for the photo industry, including chemicals. Equipment, devices for image processing. Although Kodak was considered a pioneer in this field, it could not withstand the development of digital photography. This led to a serious crisis in the company and difficult years of bankruptcy. Despite the fact that the first digital devices appeared back in 1975, Kodak’s management did not want to move away from film production, and directed research and development to improve this area, rather than producing modern equipment. The company recognized its mistake only in 2003, but it was already quite late, as competition in the market grew rapidly. Kodak technology was inferior to manufacturers who had been working for decades on digital cameras and improving their models. In addition, the advent of cell phones with a built-in camera was a blow to the company, which made the use of separate equipment for images not as popular as before. Things were getting worse at Kodak, and in 2006 the production of digital cameras had to be shut down. In 2009, the era of the legendary Kodachrome film ended, which made the manufacturer famous all over the world. In 2012, the company declared bankruptcy, but a year later it was able to pay all debts through the sale of patents and a number of assets. Since 2016 Kodak has been producing budget superzooms, cameras and smartphones of its own design. In addition, although the production of film has been reduced, it is still in progress.
