Morocco’s Pharmaceutical Industry Pushes for Local Manufacturing Boost Amid Import Concerns

A source close to the Moroccan Federation of Pharmaceutical Industry and Innovation (FMIIP) deplores the lack of any incentive to invest in their sector at the national level, denouncing provisions that encourage more imports than manufacturing. In line with Morocco’s new development model, these players call on the executive to attract investments in their sector, thus promoting local manufacturing.

The subject was recently at the heart of the exchanges between the Federation and the Head of Government, Saad Eddine El Otmani, informs Hespress, adding that the two parties recognize the sector’s ability to continue supplying the domestic market with the necessary medicines during the Covid-19 health crisis, which has seen an increase in demand.

The pharmaceutical industry in Morocco generates an annual turnover of around 15 billion dirhams, with nearly 11,000 structures serving the entire national territory. The FMIIP includes 51 industrial drug units, while the sector offers a total of nearly 55,000 jobs and exports some 17% of the national pharmaceutical production abroad, particularly to African countries.

To encourage Moroccan players to invest, the Ministry of Health has updated the legal and regulatory framework, given that the country has recorded a drop in international investments in recent decades. The department is invited to do much more, by playing a central role at the regional and international levels and by revising the laws relating to generic medicines. A source from the federation confirmed that Morocco can replace the import of a certain number of medicines from abroad by their local production, thus contributing to reducing Morocco’s trade deficit and promoting Moroccan industrial units to work in this field.

The federation still insists on the creation of a national drug agency, dear to a number of parties and demanded by the Competition Council in a report on the state of competition in the drug market in Morocco.