Saudi Arabia As the Saudi pharma market – worth approximately USD 8.2 billion – continues to grow, so does the need for pharma companies to efficiently distribute their medicines inside the Kingdom. Here, we present four of the main trends at play in the Saudi distribution landscape, from market consolidation to centralised…

Turkey While supporters of Turkey’s localization policy for pharmaceuticals implemented in 2016 applaud the changes it has brought, its opponents are awaiting a much-anticipated report by the World Trade Organization that could put an end to the policy and have global repercussions.   Five years after the launch of Turkey’s localization…

MENA The Middle East and Africa (MEA) region is vast and is predominantly composed of emerging countries with varying levels of income and healthcare infrastructure. Here, three regional managers for pharma multinationals explain what MEA means to their global groups and their key areas of focus today.   Biogen: Awareness is…

Africa Three months after the World Bank announced a EUR 600 million loan to South Africa’s Aspen Pharmacare, the African continent has received more good news as it seeks to increase vaccine manufacturing know-how.   BioNTech, the company behind Pfizer’s mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine, sold under the brand name Comirnaty, recently announced…

UAE Amgen MEA’s Mohamed Nasser* examines the current pharma commercialisation model, posits how the entire healthcare ecosystem’s rapid and effective response to COVID-19 could be replicable in other disease areas, and makes his predictions for the industry’s future direction.   Probably more than at any other time in history, the last…

Saudi Arabia In a recent royal decree, Saudi Arabia has appointed Fahad Al-Jalajel as its Minister of Health, replacing Dr Tawfiz Al-Rabia who had served since 2016. Here, we give a quick run-through of Al-Jalajel’s career thus far.   The holder of a bachelor’s degree in computer science from King Saud University,…

Turkey In the world’s 18th largest market, recent pricing struggles have pushed some companies to revaluate their investment approach. Multinational organizations are complying with localization policies but are divided between having their own plant or partnering with a local CMO provider – although all of them appear to agree on one…

Turkey Boehringer Ingelheim (BI), the largest private pharma company in the world, has become the latest Big Pharma player to commit to Turkish localization after announcing a contract manufacturing partnership with Abdi Ibrahim, the country’s national pharma champion.   The plan is to produce one out of every two boxes of…

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia’s ambitious Vision 2030 economic transformation plan aims at transitioning the Middle East’s largest economy away from an over-reliance on fossil fuels and into a more diversified modern nation. This transition is being felt especially keenly in healthcare, where the Ministry of Health’s functions are shifting with the aim…

Africa In a notable first, following successful pilot immunisation programmes in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi, the World Health Organization (WHO) has recommended that the RTS,S malaria vaccine be rolled out across sub-Saharan Africa and in other regions with moderate to high malaria transmission.   Financing for the pilot programme has been…

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia has one of the highest rates of diabetes in the world – over 17 percent of the population are diabetic – making the supply of insulin products a matter of significant national interest. To this end, the recent Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between historic US diabetes leader…

Global The global push to vaccinate populations against COVID-19 has played out differently in different geographies, with a yawning gap still existing between vaccination rates in developed and developing economies and vaccine hesitancy and scepticism rife in certain countries. Here, three country managers from Pfizer – which is aiming to manufacture…