Rumbidzayi Zinyuke
Senior Health Reporter
Zimbabwe has intensified efforts to revive its pharmaceutical manufacturing industry, with the Government exploring strategic partnerships in Africa as part of the National Pharmaceutical Strategy launched by President Mnangagwa last year.
The strategy seeks to improve access to quality-assured medicines, build local production capacity, and reduce reliance on imports, which currently account for more than 80 percent of the country’s drug supply.
Once able to produce up to 60 percent of the country’s essential medicines, Zimbabwe’s pharmaceutical sector has, over the past two decades, suffered major setbacks due to economic challenges, outdated equipment and limited access to capital.
Many companies scaled down or shut their doors, forcing reliance on imports from India, China and South Africa.
The National Pharmaceutical Strategy seeks to reverse this decline through technology transfer, regional partnerships, modernisation of laboratories, and strengthening Natpharm’s role in procurement and distribution. Central to this vision is tapping into the capacity of established African manufacturers to support Zimbabwe’s industrial recovery.
Health and Child Care Minister Dr Douglas Mombeshora said strategic partnerships were crucial to restarting local production and ensuring long-term sustainability.
“We need these partnerships because we do not have our own formulas to begin with. Working with companies that already have capacity helps spread the risk while we rebuild,” he said.
He added that pharmaceutical manufacturing was not merely an economic goal, but a national security priority, especially after global supply chain disruptions experienced during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Our aim is to strengthen both local and regional supply chains. If we can successfully attract this kind of investment, Zimbabwe will not only secure its own drug supply but also contribute to regional health security,” said Dr Mombeshora.
It is within this broader context that Government has been engaging African producers as part of the strategy to boost domestic capacity.
Towards the end of last year, Dr Mombeshora led a high-level delegation to Ghana to assess potential collaboration with Atlantic Lifesciences Limited, a state-of-the-art drug manufacturer.
“Last year, my team and I toured a drug manufacturing company that is still relatively young, but already producing a wide variety of molecules, mainly small injectables and light-volume solutions such as normal saline. The equipment they are using is extremely modern. We inspected their purification systems because injectables require very sterile water. We also went through their storage facilities and the quality checks they conduct to ensure their products meet export standards,” he said.
The Minister, who was accompanied by the Natpharm managing director Newman Madzikwa, said the visit followed earlier engagements and confirmed that the company had capacity relevant to Zimbabwe’s immediate and long-term needs.
The next step, he said, was to involve the Medicines Control Authority of Zimbabwe (MCAZ) to assess the facility’s compliance with good manufacturing practices.
“We now think it is important for MCAZ to look at the good manufacturing practices there so that products coming from that plant can be registered in Zimbabwe. This supports our broader vision of expanding local production and ensuring that anything manufactured in Africa can contribute to the pooled procurement process we are establishing,” he said.
Natpharm has already received a catalogue of available formulations and will assess which of the products are suitable for integration into Zimbabwe’s supply chain.
“In the long term, we have begun discussions aimed at enticing the company to manufacture in Zimbabwe, particularly through a partnership with Natpharm. These are the developments we are pursuing to strengthen local production,” he said.
Government believes the success of such regional collaborations will be key to reducing dependency on imports, improving medicine security and paving the way for reindustrialisation of the pharmaceutical sector.
As Zimbabwe proceeds with the roll-out of the National Pharmaceutical Strategy, detailed MCAZ assessments and follow-up engagements with potential African partners are expected to begin soon, marking a decisive step in the country’s journey to rebuild a resilient pharmaceutical industry
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