Pharmaceuticals imports in Tanzania: Overview of private sector market size, share, growth and projected trends to 2021

Abstract

Background To assess the extent to which foreign pharmaceutical imports vary from year to year and identifying leading generic and branded formulations, key countries and key importers of pharmaceuticals in private sector supply chain. Methodology A systematic analysis of data for pharmaceutical imports from the Ministry of Health.Data from 2013 to 2016 fiscal years and relevant documents were accessed from the Tanzania Food and Drugs Authority (TFDA). Data cleaning was carried out to remove duplicate entries and to exclude pharmaceutical imports for individual uses, promotion purpose, donations, raw material, medical devices, government institutions and veterinary products. Results A total of 397 different suppliers imported pharmaceutical in Tanzania mainland from 2013 to 2016 fiscal years. In the 2013–2014 fiscal year, the private sector suppliers imported pharmaceutical worth 216 U.S million dollars. India ranked as the first country for exporting highest value of pharmaceutical into the country. It displays a 54% cumulative market share of total imports from 2013–2016, followed by Egypt (11.7%), Switzerland and the USA hold 4.1% of cumulative market share. By 2020–2021 fiscal years, we forecast for imported pharmaceuticals to reach a total value of 906 U.S million dollars for the private sector supply chain. All analysis in this study and the forecasted figures are limited to private sector pharmaceutical supply chain only and does not include data for government pharmaceutical supply chain. Conclusions Our result shows that the vast majority of pharmaceutical imports in the private sector supply chain are dominated by imports from India. India is competing with other countries such as Egypt, Switzerland, USA and South Africa among the top importing countries. There was almost an equal distribution of pharmaceutical for both communicable and non-communicable diseases. Data presented shows a growing trend for the market segment for medicines required for the management of non-communicable diseases. Generally, the private sector pharmaceutical market is keeping on rising at a rapid pace. By the year 2021, the growth is forecasted to increase by 28% compared to the current market value. The projected growth rate could be good news for foreign pharmaceutical companies seeking new sources of growth in international pharmaceutical trading. It is also good news to the poor patients if the availability of drugs previously unavailable in the country is significantly increased.

National Antibiotics Utilization Trends for Human Use in Tanzania from 2010 to 2016 Inferred from Tanzania Medicines and Medical Devices Authority Importation Data

“…We found a higher dominance of suppliers of antibiotics from India. In the top ten suppliers of antibiotics in Tanzania, this trend has also been shown in other studies [37], indicating a good trade between Tanzania and India in the sales of pharmaceutics. However, the antibiotic quality determination was beyond the scope of this study.…”

National Consumption of Antimicrobials in Tanzania: 2017–2019

“…Overall, the findings also indicate that the majority of antimicrobial consumption in Tanzania occurs in the private sector and that the proportion of private-sector antibiotic consumption increased annually from 2017 to 2019. This phenomenon may be explained by progressively higher volumes of private-sector pharmaceutical imports over the years, with forecasted growth of 28% by 2021 compared to the previous 5 years (Wande et al, 2019). With the exception of requirements for all national health insurance fund-approved providers to adhere to Tanzania's national standard treatment guidelines, other private-sector providers are not obliged, and therefore prescribing habits vary.…”

Prices of medicines for the management of pain, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases in private pharmacies and the national health insurance in Tanzania

“…More than half of the imported medicines in Tanzania in terms of market value comes from Indian Pharmaceutical companies followed by Egypt. Antibacterial, analgesics, and antimalarial medicines were the top three categories [ 34 ]. The inability of local industries to produce enough low-cost generics medicines satisfying Good Manufacturing Practice standards [ 33 ], means imports from external sources will continue to dominate the Tanzanian market.…”

“…The inability of local industries to produce enough low-cost generics medicines satisfying Good Manufacturing Practice standards [ 33 ], means imports from external sources will continue to dominate the Tanzanian market. It is predicted that by the year 2021 the private sector market value of pharmaceuticals will increase by 28% [ 34 ]. A study by Ewen et al 2016 showed that in a sample of 24 essential medicines, prices in the private sector were 101 and 201% higher than the international reference prices for locally produced and imported medicines, respectively [ 35 ].…”