Invited webinar -Attracting foreign investment in the medicines... - by Dr. Avv. Roberto Isibor et al.

"ATTRACTING FOREIGN INVESTMENT IN THE MEDICINES SECTOR: THE AFRICAN CHALLENGE" presented by Dr. Avv. Roberto Isibor, Università Bocconi & Hogan Lovells; Avv. Caterina Coroneo, Hogan Lovells; Avv. Angelo Forte, Hogan Lovells;  Chaired by Piergiorgio Patrizii, UNIVAQ, DISCAB

Due to the continued growth of Africa’s population, the recent rising of middle-class demanding quality healthcare, and the increased need for specialized treatments and therapies, the demand for medicines has been growing exponentially across the Continent. Local African production of packaged medicines is currently incapable of meeting such an increase in demand. Indeed, only around 600 manufacturers of packaged medicines operate on the Continent, mainly in North Africa, focusing on formulation and packaging with – also – limited upstream R&D and a shortage of intermediates and active pharmaceutical ingredients. As the UN Industrial Development Organization and international industry operators project substantial growth in the worth of Africa’s pharmaceutical sector in the coming years, the current gap between local demand and local production evidently provides a vast potential for foreign investment. The attractiveness of Africa’s pharmaceutical market to foreign investors is severely challenged, on the other hand, by some of its intrinsic features, namely the inadequacy of the local health infrastructure, the weak protection of intellectual property rights, the limited manufacturing capacities and, primarily, the fragmentation and complexity of regulatory systems across African countries, leading to lengthy approval processes and barriers to market entry. Against the latter issue, institutions, scholars and industry operators have been welcoming the ongoing harmonization process as promising to make the regulatory framework more clear, stable and consistent with global standards and practices, and, thus, ultimately, more capable of easing attraction of foreign investments to the Continent and trigger positive cycles of increased regional manufacturing. The newly active African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement, the African Medicines Regulatory Initiative (AMRH), which was established in 2009 as part of the Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Plan for Africa (PMPA) and the 2019 African Medicines Association (AMA), which 24 countries have ratified to date, have been identified as potential game changers. Results are, however, yet to be confirmed. Recent collaborative initiatives with European institutions, including, in particular, the Team Europe Initiative on Manufacturing and Access to Vaccines, Medicines and Health Technologies in Africa, have also moved in the same direction. The presentation, stemming from the assumption that greater foreign investments (particularly direct foreign investments) will benefit the African’s healthcare sector, will analyse the harmonization provisions as well as the cooperation initiatives currently in place to assess whether the measures and the strategies taken so far to attract foreign investors are paving the way in the right direction, or whether African governments should approach alternative solutions.

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link - https://univaq.webex.com/univaq/j.php?MTID=m23d6ed3d5de13dde23e84c770430f3c3