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PARLIAMENT is edging closer towards establishing a pharmaceutical caucus that is expected to help promote sectoral policies that increase the local manufacture of drugs.
The initiative comes at a time Zimbabwe faces shortages of essential drugs in public health institutions.
The country imports about 80 percent of its medical requirements, including those that can potentially be manufactured locally.
At least 60 percent of the imported medicines are from India, with the remainder being purchased from South Africa, Germany and the United States.
Speaker of the National Assembly Advocate Jacob Mudenda confirmed the development to The Sunday Mail.
“Yes, I am aware of it, but contact the Members of Parliament who are pushing for it. They have more information,” he said.
Interim chairperson of the caucus, Mr Mathias Tongofa, said preliminary processes to establish the caucus had been completed.
“The constitution was approved (by Parliament), we are now waiting for the confirmation letter so that we can launch (the caucus) soon,” he said.
The caucus will work as a tool for strengthening Parliament’s contribution to the pharmaceutical sector.
According to the pharmaceutical caucus’ constitution, the grouping will facilitate enactment of laws to promote growth in the pharmaceutical sector.
Players in the industry have been raising concern over outdated pieces of legislation regulating their operations.
The caucus is also expected to devise strategies to promote investment and access to funding by players in the sector.
Mr Tongofa said: “We feel that if we push the agenda, legislatively we can remove archaic laws which were enacted before independence.
“Some of them are barriers to access to medicines and even procurement.
“Setting up manufacturing plants for medicines is currently a mammoth task. For one to register a drug, there are too many processes involved.
“We need to review those laws and promote local manufacturing of drugs in order to reduce the cost of medicines.”
The body, which will be made up of 12 legislators, will also work hand-in-glove with other parliamentary portfolio committees.
Past presidents of the Pharmaceutical Society of Zimbabwe and the current president will be part of the secretariat.
A team of technocrats from the country’s institutions of higher learning will advise the caucus.
The pharmaceutical caucus becomes the third after the women’s and tuberculosis caucuses launched in 2001 and 2016, respectively.
Mr Tongofa said a paradigm shift was needed to ensure more pharmacy graduates end up in medicines manufacturing and not drug retailing.
The University of Zimbabwe will soon introduce a postgraduate degree in pharmacy that focuses on the manufacture of generic medicines.
Online Reporter