South Africa: “Breaking Barriers to Medicine Access”, NAPM- NAtional Association of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers
Release Date: 2011-11-14
For the first time in history Africa played host to the Annual International Generic Pharmaceutical Alliance (IGPA) Conference. Organized by the National Association of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers of South Africa (NAPM), a member of the IGPA, the 14th International Conference took place in Cape Town from the 1st to the 3rd of November and was a real success.
Opened by South Africa’s Director-general of the National Department of Health, Dr Malebona Precious Matsoso, the two day event gave delegates the opportunity to hear prominent local and international industry personalities and government authorities discuss current topics pertinent to the global pharmaceutical and healthcare sector. With representatives from institutions such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the European Generic Association (EGA), as well as the World Health organization (WHO), the conference helped delegates understand global trends and strategic issues. With this year’s theme being “Breaking Barriers to Medicine Access”, speakers debated and discussed the sustainability of the current generic business model, regulatory developments affecting the industry, globalization and HIV/AIDS treatments, the impact of the diminishing innovator pipeline, competitive strategies involving intellectual property and/patents and the role of super generics and pseudo generics.
Even though South Africa has achieved the 1st Millennium Development Goal (MDG) – reducing the proportion of the population living on less than 1 USD a day by half – and joined the BRICS members as a sign of its economic development, the country now more than ever has issues to tackle with relevance to its healthcare system.
With HIV prevalence representing 17% of the global burden, incidence of diabetes and tuberculosis increasing rapidly and a life expectancy at birth of 54, South Africa needs to work internally on reducing the timeline for the registration of new medicines as well as ensuring that the introduction of the national health insurance (NHI), a revolutionary 15 years project, follows its schedule of implementation.
Whilst the IGPA 2011 highlighted the beneficial use of generic medicines, at the same time it acknowledged the necessity of promoting innovative medicines as a means of creating a pipeline for the generic industry and emphasized the need for countries to find the right balance between IP, competition and innovation. As Mr Bodhania, chairperson of NAPM pointed out, “countries need a collective action to common challenges.”
In between India hosting the IGPA in 2010 and next year’s conference being held in Japan, the fact that South Africa has hosted such a prestigious international event is evidence of the potential in South Africa and confidence in the country’s capacity to lead a pharma model for the entire continent.
| Type: | MEDIA |
| Company: | NAPM- NAtional Association of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers |
| Country: | 南非 |