The Senegalese association of the pharmaceutical industry (ASIP) faced the press to alert on the urgency of having local pharmaceutical industries. To achieve pharmaceutical sovereignty, the ASIP indicates that this will necessarily pass through the revitalization of the existing pharmaceutical units in arrears with the establishment of a system of regulation of the imports and the activities of local medical production called «system of correlation».
he Senegalese pharmaceutical market represents 150 billion CFAF in 2019, or “1-2% of the African market and nearly 200 billion in 2021. This market is 80% dominated by the private sector and 20% by the public sector. Senegal imports more than 97% of its drug needs. On the strength of this observation, the Senegalese Association of the Pharmaceutical Industry (ASIP) is warning about urgent measures to regulate imports and local medical production activities called «correlation system». According to their president, Dr Aziz Ciss, the pharmaceutical industry is highly dependent on economies of scale requiring sufficient target volumes to ensure the competitiveness of production units. “In addition, stringent quality regulations and long lead times make it a unique industry,” he says. “The lessons learned from COVID-19 and the move towards pharmaceutical sovereignty require new attitudes from the Senegalese administration and health stakeholders (prescribers, pharmacists and consumers) by giving primacy to Senegalese products. This new attitude called economic patriotism will allow the creation of new jobs and the consolidation of existing jobs, the decrease of imports and by extension the decrease of foreign exchange outflows, the manufacture of social products at low margins but necessary for the health of populations, the reduction of drug shortages, the medium-term reduction of drug costs, the effective fight against the illicit sale of street medicines, improve financial and geographic accessibility throughout the country.” He recalls that in 2017, Senegal experienced the departure of two pharmaceutical multinationals (Pfizer and Sanofi). If strong and ambitious short-term measures are not taken by the government for the pharmaceutical industry, ASIP member companies are heading straight for bankruptcy,” he warned. According to him, to improve the competitiveness of existing units and allow the arrival of new national and international players, Accompanying measures are also expected including the establishment between local industrialists and the PNA of five-year agreements that can guarantee markets justifying investments in the production tool and develop employment.
As part of the PNA’s International Call for Tender, any industrial player of foreign origin who earns a line greater than or equal to CFAF 500 million must rely on a local industrialist to carry out at least the secondary packaging operation. The aim is to have within the IDA a special committee for applications for Marketing Authorisation for local manufacturers, the granting by the IDA of a marketing authorisation bis for products already technically evaluated, to grant local industries tax-free status for a period of 10 years to enable them to be viable and competitive, an essential condition for the success of pharmaceutical sovereignty, the signing of an order or a special authorization allowing the exercise of wholesale distribution for the import and export of pharmaceutical products, the total exemption of VAT on investments and services, the establishment of a specific FONGIP guarantee line for the pharmaceutical industry in order to finance the strengthening of their production capacity in the industry.
