Chronicle Editor
Nqobile Bhebhe, Senior Business Reporter
BULAWAYO headquartered pharmaceutical and healthcare products manufacturer, Datlabs Limited, says the drive to harmonise registration regulations for pharmaceutical products across Southern Africa is critical in assisting the company and other local producers to penetrate regional markets.
Datlabs chief executive officer, Mr Todd Moyo told Business Chronicle that the registration process in foreign markets and the influx of Asian products were major stumbling blocks for local products to penetrate the markets.
“The main challenge with pharmaceutical products is the registration of the products in different regional locations as each country has its own set of registration rules, which tend to differ from country to country,” he said.
“These registration processes are also quite costly and normally take a long time before approvals are granted,” said Mr Moyo in written response to the Business Chronicle.
“However, even after successful registration, the products face stiff competition mainly from products from the Asian countries that enjoy economies of scale and lower cost structures.
“There are efforts to harmonise registration laws across Sadc countries and that should assist local companies penetrate regional markets. For other non-registered products the cost of entry into those markets is still high but hopefully we can work with other enablers to enter more foreign markets.”
Mr Moyo said the giant pharmaceutical firm has a range of products as its source of strength but quickly clarified that personal care products such as Camphacare have done well since their introduction into the market despite pressure from imported products.
The critical care products have the potential to do well in future, he noted.
Mr Moyo said for the sector to make inroads in foreign markets, it needs to produce quality products at lower costs.
“From the Government we need an enabling legal and economic environment to produce at lower costs and be able to access foreign currency and funding whenever required,” he said.
“We can only be successful in foreign markets when we also do well at home.”
To stay afloat in the local market, the pharmaceutical firm is looking at new product lines and ensuring that products are available in the market.
“Datlabs has been operating just above the average industry operating capacity for some years and aims to improve as we move forward. We continue to look at new products that will assist us with the current disease patterns but it takes time to register pharmaceutical products through the processes and develop these in the market,” said Mr Moyo.
“We have made sure that the quality products we manufacture and supply to the market are mostly available for our customers at competitive prices.
“We also now have a Statutory Instrument that ensures that the pharmaceutical products manufactured by at least two local companies are purchased locally.
“We have co-operated as an industry to make sure that we do as much as possible for the local private and institutional market.”
Last year, the Government launched a Pharmaceutical Strategy for 2021-2025, which targets to increase the market share of local pharmaceutical products from 12 percent to 35 percent by 2025.
The strategy is also targeted at increasing the local production of essential medicines from 30 percent to 60 percent by 2025 while sales revenue of local production will increase from US$31,5 million to US$150 million during the same period.
Exports in pharmaceutical products are expected to go up from 10 percent to 25 percent by the year 2025.
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