Local pharmaceutical companies have made fresh appeals for the government to enforce the policy on restricted imports of some medicines which are produced locally.
They complain that some people are sidestepping the policy which is affecting their business.
The restriction on the importation of medicines produced locally, was introduced in 2017.
The policy covers 49 medicines.
These include; paracetamol syrup and tablet, vitamin B complex tablet, multivitamin tablets, aspirin or caffeine tablet, folic acid tablet, aluminium hydroxide or magnesium trisilicate suspension.
The importers of such products have since been banned from continuing their business.
But speaking to Citi Business News at the sidelines of IE Africa center forum, the CEO of Dannex, Aryton drugs and Starwin, Daniel Kissi said instances of some importers sidestepping the process must be looked at.
“The first thing is to actualize the forty-nine medicines and as at now I am not sure anyone in the industry can say that the forty-nine products have been actualized in terms of all of those products made in Ghana and no imports are coming in. So we need to actualize, optimize and make that happen to the fullest then we can talk of adding other medicines,” he said.
The pharmaceutical industry in Africa is expected to rake in between 40 to 60 billion dollars in revenue by 2020.
As a result, Mr. Kissi believes there is the need to expand businesses to take advantage of the opportunity.
According to him, the merging of Aryton drugs, Dannex and Starwin should help in addressing the production deficit within the industry:
“The coming together of the three companies is going to create huge capabilities. So we will have the ability to supply and meet a lot of the demand that is out there for the products that we are capable of and our future plans will also build our capability going forward.”
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Source: Citibusinessnews.com
