Op-ed: It’s time for pharmaceutical companies to embrace Africa’s growing healthcare market

Jayasree K. Iyer, CEO of the Access to Medicine Foundation, writes about Africa’s evolving health landscape, drawing insights from the recently published report out of the Foundation’s Generic & Biosimilar Medicines Programme.

In the op-ed, Jayasree notes that health problems linked to unhealthy diets, reduced physical activity and air pollution will cause noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) to overtake deaths caused by communicable, maternal, neonatal and nutritional diseases in sub-Saharan Africa by 2030.

She explains that due to this shift, addressing long-standing gaps is essential. While there is more work to do, she highlights early points of progress, such as regulatory harmonisation, domestic purchasing power and local production, with the African Union aiming to produce 60% of necessary health products locally by 2040.

Jayasree also points out the key role that generic and biosimilar medicine manufacturers are playing in addressing access gaps in Africa, as the producers of about 80% of the world’s pharmaceuticals by volume.

She concludes that solutions to current barriers are within view, such as realigning donor funding to suit the current healthcare landscape and using health taxes as a revenue stream for health services.