Pharmaceutical Industry: Key Issues in Growth in Pakistan & International Market

Abstract

Pakistan has a very vibrant and forward-looking Pharma Industry. At the time of independence in 1947, there was hardly any pharma industry in the country. Today Pakistan has about 400 pharmaceutical manufacturing units including those operated by 25 multinationals present in the country. The Pakistan Pharmaceutical Industry meets around 70% of the country's demand of Finished Medicine. The domestic pharma market, in term of share market is almost evenly divided between the Nationals and the Multinationals (Ahmed & Saeed, 2012).The National pharma industry has shown a progressive growth over the years, particularly over the last one decade. The industry has invested substantially to upgrade itself in the last few years and today the majority industry is following Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP), in accordance with the domestic as well as international Guidance. Currently the industry has the capacity to manufacture a variety of product ranging from simple pills to sophisticated Biotech, Oncology and Value Added Generic compounds (Aamir & Zaman, 2011).Although Pakistan 's pharmaceutical and healthcare sectors are expanding and evolving rapidly, about half the population has no access to modern medicines. Clearly this presents an opportunity, but much more work needs to be done by the government and industry's stakeholders. The value of pharmaceuticals sold in 2007 exceeded US$1.4bn, which equates to per capita consumption of less than US$10 per year and value of medicines sold is expected to exceed US$2.3 B by 2012 (Ahmed et al., 2011).