Pictured: Aerial view of Cape Town, South Africa/iStock, Ben1183
High import costs, late access to drugs and disease burden are pushing South Africa to build a strong domestic biopharmaceutical sector.
An August 2023 Arizton report predicts that the market price of biopharmaceuticals in the country will double by 2028 from its $1. 1 billion price in 2022, with a compound annual expansion rate of 12. 30%. In another sign of the sector’s momentum, Aspen Pharmacare Holdings, a South African biopharmaceutical company, reported that its profits grew 5% this year. According to experts, the production of biopharmaceuticals in the country would further expand this market, ensure the availability of medicines, and provide affordable treatments for South Africans.
The expansion of the industry reflects a renewed commitment by the government to manufacture biopharmaceuticals locally, said David Katerere, research professor of pharmaceutical and biotechnological progress in Africa at Tshwane University of Technology in South Africa. “Access to life-saving medicines is very limited on the African continent. That is why there is a motion to publicize the production of biotherapeutics on the continent,” he explained. He said the motion was very active in South Africa and had the help of the government. Last year, following a partnership between Aspen Pharmacare Holdings and the Serum Institute of India, South Africa’s Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition said in a statement that the South African government was working with local pharmaceutical corporations to revive the country’s biotech sector, reduce dependence on imports and improve vaccine supply. An African biopharmaceutical company, partly owned by the government, recently collaborated with ImmunityBio, a U. S. -based biopharmaceutical company, to produce active pharmaceutical ingredients for a COVID-19 vaccine.
Although the country is not a hub for primary production, Katerere said South Africa has a strong clinical progression environment. Gayathri Raghupathy, vice president of clinical and advertising strategy at Kognitic Inc. , which monitors partnerships occurring in the biopharmaceutical industry, told BioSpace that there are 269 active cancer trials in South Africa lately, 208 of which are conducted in percentage in the U. S. In the U. S. and other countries. Many of these trials are sponsored through non-South African companies. “This trend emphasizes the enduring collaboration between the U. S. and the U. S. “We are working with the U. S. and South Africa to achieve oncology clinical trials,” Raghupathy said.
According to Arizton’s report, the South African biopharmaceutical market is governed by multinational corporations such as Pfizer, GSK, Johnson.
This lack of domestic production hurts the economy, as import prices skyrocket, Maimin said. “I think it’s unaffordable to import medicines from the UK, Germany, Spain and the US. “
Maimin noted that the costs of imported drugs are compounded by a “quadruple burden of disease” that is draining the country’s purse. “We have a lot of diabetes and cardiovascular disease; our non-communicable diseases are growing very quickly. On top of that, we’ve got the largest HIV [burden] in the world and our infectious diseases linked with TB are growing, and then unfortunately we also have a lot of violence and injuries,” Maimin noted. “When you look at all of these, we spend a lot of our GDP on health to support the pharmaceutical market.”
Arizton’s report shows that biopharmaceuticals have had a positive effect on the country’s burden of disease. This is especially true for antiretroviral treatment used in the control of HIV/AIDS. Maimin said the antiretroviral program in South Africa is most commonly funded through the United States. South Africa’s broader biopharmaceutical market is thriving thanks to a variety of funding resources. One example is the mRNA Vaccine Technology Transfer Center introduced in 2021 to produce mRNA vaccines for Africans. The center is an initiative supported through the World Health Organization, the Medicines Patent Pool and the Act-Accelerator/COVAX.
It is not clear when South Africa might start manufacturing biopharmaceuticals, as it is currently hampered by a cost-motivated preference for foreign medications, the high cost of local manufacturing and regulatory issues in the country and within the continent, experts told BioSpace. In contrast to some regions in Asia and elsewhere, sub-Saharan Africa’s drug manufacturing facilities are poorly equipped. In addition, Maimin said medications imported from India are far cheaper than locally produced versions and that the health ministry favors cheaper drugs.
Another problem, Maimin said, is that if a new drug is imported into South Africa from some other continent, it will have to be signed, and if the drug is exported to some other African country, it will go through some other registration circular. African leaders are trying to harmonize regulatory bodies within the continent so that medicines exported to African countries are not subject to regulatory procedures, Maimin said. “We have a tendency to register a product once in Africa, and then it’s in all African countries,” he explained.
Katerere said Africa doesn’t make medicines because the continent’s governments don’t buy local brands. To make sure the country ramps up its production of local biopharmaceuticals, Katerere said her fitness ministry looks at local brands first when opting for suppliers. Maimin advised that the South African government first seeks to understand why local medicines are so expensive and then identifies stronger industrial relationships with other African countries. “If we could collaborate more with local African businesses, I think it would be much greater for Africa as a whole. This “would make medicines more affordable. It also wouldn’t leave us at the back of the queue when there’s an emergency like the COVID pandemic,” Maimin said.
Patience Asanga is a freelance science journalist based in Nigeria who writes about the environment, biotechnology and science.
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