By Alex C
Following projections by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) that pharmaceutical imports into the country will reach $700 million in 2018, investors have expressed interest in tapping into huge opportunities through the establishment of manufacturing plants locally and/or ending medical tourism through offering treatment to Nigerian patients in-country.
Gumel Farouk, partner, PwC, a multinational professional services firm, disclosed that imports of drugs and their ancillaries into the country, which stood at $400 million in 2012, were expected to increase by 75 percent to $700 million in 2018. Farouk stated that the situation could not even end medical tourism whose annual estimate stood between $500 million and $800 million.
According to Farouk, there is currently 0.4 physicians per 1,000 patients; 1.605 nursing and midwifery staff members per 1,000 Nigerians; 0.105 pharmaceutical personnel per 1,000 citizens; as well as 0.095 pharmacists per 1,000 people in the country.
Given these indices, investors are excited about the viable opportunities present in the pharmaceutical sector and are hell-bent on taking maximum advantage of them. They point at Nigeria’s 174 million population with 2.8 percent annual growth potential, less than 55 percent capacity in the pharmaceutical industry, strong demand for improved management of infectious diseases in the country, among others, as reasons for investment excitement.
The nation’s economic transformation blueprint indicates Nigeria’s willingness to achieve the target of at least 75 percent of our drug needs by 2020. There is clear momentum in Nigeria for the development of the pharma industry with emphasis on building capacity for local production through strategic partnership and technology transfer.
Nigeria has a very large market size and strong demand of medicines, especially in the management of infectious diseases, malaria and childhood diseases. The World Bank 2011 data put Nigeria’s birth rate at 5.49 births per woman. This compares with Kenya with 4.68 births per woman and South Africa with 2.42 births. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) ranks the country ninth in under-5 mortality, while the CIA World Factbook puts the country’s death rate at 13.2 deaths per 1,000.
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