Tendai Kamhungira 
PHARMACEUTICAL experts have renewed their calls for the government to make good its promises to resuscitate the industry, which they say is now operating at just 40 percent of its capacity.
Vice President Constantine Chiwenga who is also the Minister of Health
This comes two years after the authorities had engaged India and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to help resuscitate fallen pharmaceutical giants CAPS Holdings and Bulawayo-based Datlabs.
Now, amid continuing shortages of vital medicines due to high demand for foreign currency, the experts have said the government should lead the revival of the pharmaceutical industry to ease the burgeoning import bill.
Zimbabwe spends about US$400 million per year to meet its full drug requirements for the health services sector.
The Federation of African Pharmaceutical Manufacturers’ Association (FAPMA) — an umbrella body of the pharmaceutical manufacturing companies in Zimbabwe — said the revival of the local companies would help improve their capacity utilisation while significantly cutting the current high import bill.
“Production is currently at 40 percent and this is due to foreign currency shortages and slow turnaround times in the issuance of certificates to import certain products.
“More than 80 percent of the medicine is being imported and this … creates a number of challenges and liability.
“And with Covid-19 restrictions, there are likely going to be shortages of drugs,” FAPMA chairperson, Emmanuel Mujuru told The Financial Gazette this week.
Former Health and Child Care minister during the short-lived but stability-inducing 2009 government of national unity (GNU), Henry Madzorera, said the current top five pharmaceutical companies — CAPS, Datlabs, Varichem, Plus 5 and Pharmanova – had the capacity to produce and meet most of the country’s medicine requirements.
“We have the capacity to manufacture drugs, but we need to be capacitated more. With the will of government, private companies such as CAPS and Varichem can actually prosper.
“There is money for that. African Development Bank told us (during the time he was the minister) they had the money to capacitate our pharmaceutical industry.
“So, money is not the problem but the government needs to guarantee that and to be behind all the developments. So that’s the kind of support that the government should give … to the manufacturing industry,” Madzorera told The Financial Gazette.
“It is about building capacity … creating employment for our people … creating capacity within our people so that we can actually advance.
“It (capacity) advances our research methodologies … our academic pursuits as a nation, so that we can actually … discover new molecules that have not yet been discovered,” Madzorera added.
Madzorera’s successor at the end of the GNU, David Parirenyatwa, also told this publication that the country needed to return to yesteryear mode where local pharmaceutical companies supplied more than 90 percent of Zimbabwe’s needs.
Parirenyatwa — citing the 2016 import controls on certain medicines — said this had benefits to the local medicines industry.
“This is the way to go. The idea of local manufacturing is a good one. The idea was actually to look at regional manufacturing, where countries look at what each country is good at manufacturing.
“For example, if Zimbabwe is good at manufacturing diabetic medicine, then other countries in the region will then source that drug in Zimbabwe, the same will also happen with the other countries.
“It is not only about government initiatives, even the private sector should come in and identify the drugs that are needed for local production, including the manufacturing of condoms and gloves,” Parirenyatwa said.
This comes as the five top pharmaceutical companies remain in the grip of financial and production challenges despite the government’s commitment to lead in their revivals.
In 2019, then Health and Child Care minister Obadiah Moyo said that the government was negotiating with Indian companies who had expressed an interest in reviving CAPS and other drugs companies.
“We want to revamp and capacitate our manufacturing industry, starting with CAPS and companies that are there like Datlabs, Plus Five and Varichem.
“We want to create a situation where these local manufacturing companies are rehabilitated, strengthened and are able to produce adequate and appropriate essential medicines for the country,” Moyo said then.
He added that revamping CAPS was important as it was a good company which was being held back by its antiquated equipment. “We have identified companies in conjunction with the ministry of Industry and Commerce for India to come and improve. “CAPS has 200 registered formulae which means they can be able to supply 200 different types of medicines at any one time if they are fully functional,” he said, revealing that Zimbabwe was buying 80 percent of its drugs from India.
Moyo also said that the government was looking to the UAE which had also offered to support its programme to strengthen its public health system.
Zimbabwe’s health delivery system has continued to battle myriad problems, primarily as a result of the worsening economic climate in the country.
As a result, major referral hospitals have often had to suspend many critical services because of collapsing infrastructure and the shortage of drugs, including painkillers.
At the peak of its economy, Zimbabwe did not import most of its drugs due to the then healthy state of its pharmaceutical industry, which was dominated by CAPS.
At its peak, the struggling drug manufacturer accounted for 75 percent of the local healthcare products market — and was involved in the manufacture, wholesale, distribution and retail of pharmaceutical, consumer and veterinary products.
Today, the company is only operating below its full capacity — leaving the country’s health institutions with no option but to procure medicines, including intravenous drip water, from outside the country.
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