From the “Ten cooperation plans” announced at the Johannesburg Summit in 2015 to the “eight major actions” announced at the Beijing Summit in 2018, medicine and health have become a key area of China-Africa cooperation. Medical and health cooperation has become a top priority in China-Africa cooperation. In fact, Africa is the most densely populated continent of developing countries, industrialization and urbanization have just started, and the demographic dividend is huge, and the future pharmaceutical market is an incremental market with great potential. So what are the characteristics of the African pharmaceutical market? This article will briefly review the African pharmaceutical market.
When it comes to the African market, it is often used to regard it as a whole. In fact, there are 54 countries in Africa with 1.3 billion people. Africa is generally divided into North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa, and sub-Saharan Africa is often referred to as “black Africa.” North Africa is mainly Arab, the main countries are Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and so on; Sub-saharan Africa is further divided into Central Africa, West Africa, East Africa and Southern Africa. According to the official languages of the countries south of the Sahara, it is mainly divided into English, French, Portuguese. French-speaking countries are mainly concentrated in Central and West Africa, and English-speaking countries are mainly in East and South Africa, and each country has its own personalized things in terms of economic development level, market access and characteristics. Like the French-speaking market, many are public bidding markets, distributors and wholesalers are fixed and designated by the government, and the distribution of drugs is mainly controlled by a few French distributors, such as UBI PHARM, EPDIS, Planet Pharm, Tridem Pharma(acquired by Forstar Pharma in 2017). The price markup is also fixed, so the French-speaking pharmaceutical market is relatively regulated and closed. Anglophone countries such as Ethiopia, Uganda and Tanzania are dominated by public tender markets, while Nigeria and Kenya are dominated by private markets. Nigeria, for example, ranks first among African countries in terms of population, economic aggregate and oil and gas export volume. Its private market accounts for about 70%, the market capacity is large, radiation capacity is also very strong. At the same time, it is also a fully competitive market, and the competition is very fierce. For many years, Nigeria has been the largest market for Chinese pharmaceutical products in Africa, with exports of more than $100 million in recent years and exports of $126 million in 2019.
At present, Africa accounts for about 3% of the global pharmaceutical market, with a total volume of about 40 billion US dollars, which is basically equivalent to the size of Italy. But Africa’s total pharmaceutical volume, while small, is growing fast. In the past few years, the global pharmaceutical market has grown by an average of 5.8%, and the African pharmaceutical market has grown by more than 10%. According to African Medical Authority Special Envoy Michel. Sidibe said the pharmaceutical industry in Africa will grow from $19 billion in 2012 to $66 billion in 2022, making it the fastest growing market in the world. The birth rate in Africa generally exceeds 2%, and the population will double by 2050, and with the improvement of urbanization and industrialization, the future pharmaceutical market in Africa will be a huge incremental market.
About Wisdom Drugs
Wisdom Drugs Co., Ltd was founded in Sep. 2011 whose headquarter located in Changzhou Creative Industry Park, having a branch in India. The company’s R&D center is engaged in not only the process development of APIs, intermediates, poly-peptide compounds and heterocyclic compounds, but also the optimization and production. We are devoted to the synthesis customization and the technology transfer, enabling compounds to be scaled from laboratory to commercial to meet the requirements of different customers.
