Zambia plans to raise the share of locally made medicines from 3 per cent to 20 per cent by 2030. The harder test is whether local firms can make them well, affordably and at a scale that reaches beyond the domestic market.
Zambia can build a pharmaceutical industry, but the number of factories it opens will not decide whether it succeeds. What decides it is whether Zambian firms can produce quality assured medicines consistently, at prices that compete with imports, and eventually sell them in neighbouring markets.
The ambition itself is easy to understand. A country that imports most of the medicines it uses is exposed to supply disruptions, foreign exchange pressure and shocks in global supply chains. Domestic capacity could improve medicine security, create skilled jobs and keep more value at home.
Making medicines in Zambia is not the same thing as having a competitive industry, though. A factory can run locally while relying on imported raw materials, foreign technology and government contracts. That is local production. It is not yet the industrial capability needed to sustain production independently, and Zambia should treat self reliance as a capability to build rather than a percentage to hit.
An ambitious strategy on a small industrial base
The Government’s Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Strategy 2024 to 2028 seeks to raise the share of locally manufactured products consumed in Zambia from a stated baseline of 3 per cent to 20 per cent by 2030. It also names a competitive regional manufacturing hub as a national goal.
The starting point is modest. A 2022 parliamentary report recorded ten registered pharmaceutical manufacturers. Seven were full manufacturers and three repackaged finished products. Only four of the seven full manufacturers were active. The same report found 123 locally produced medicines on ZAMRA’s register, out of more than 8,154 registered products.
Those figures are four years old and should not be read as a full picture of the industry in 2026. They do show the gap between registering a manufacturing company and running one that produces at scale.
Zambia is not starting from nothing. Pharmanova, which says it has operated since 1980, makes paracetamol, ibuprofen capsules and oral rehydration products. International Drug Company Limited runs plants in Lusaka and Kabwe and describes itself as Zambia’s only manufacturer of intravenous fluids. Yash Life Sciences operates a facility in Shimabala producing oral suspensions and tablets.
International Drug Company has since announced a US$10 million expansion covering new antibiotic production lines and upgrades to its infusion plant. Officials presented it as a source of jobs, skills and local supply. The investment is welcome. The wider question is what single investments add to the industry as a whole, which needs finance, skilled staff, technology, reliable inputs and buyers, not just more plants.
Manufacturing is not the same as industrial capability
Public debate tends to count every form of local production as the same achievement. It is not. Pharmaceutical manufacturing runs from making active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and excipients, through formulation and processing, to quality control and packaging. Each stage needs different technology, capital and expertise.
A firm that repackages imported finished medicines contributes less than one that formulates tablets locally from imported APIs. Producing the ingredients themselves would be a further step up. Formulation and packaging still create jobs and skills and should not be dismissed. But a rise in locally packaged products should not be reported as if Zambia had learned to make pharmaceutical ingredients.
The national strategy itself lists the constraints: limited local production of APIs and other inputs, high production costs, poor access to finance and weak research and development. So Zambia wants to import fewer medicines while many of its own medicines depend on imported ingredients and machinery. Local manufacturing can cut reliance on finished imports without ending reliance on foreign production systems.
Importing ingredients is normal. Established industries in India and Europe rely on international supply chains too. What matters is whether Zambia raises the value it adds at home over time. That calls for a deliberate sequence: start with products that are commercially viable and strategically important, then move into more demanding areas as skills and capital build up.
The Akums partnership: investment or long term dependence?
The proposed joint venture between the Government of Zambia and India’s Akums Drugs and Pharmaceuticals Limited is the clearest test of what this industrial policy will look like in practice.
Under the framework agreement announced in August 2025, Akums is to hold 51 per cent of the venture and a nominated Zambian state entity 49 per cent. The company said the plant would make tablets, capsules, liquids, injectables and beta lactam products, with production expected to begin in 2028. A partner of this kind can bring technology and expertise that Zambia would struggle to develop on its own.
One clause in Akums’ stock exchange disclosure needs closer public attention. Until the Zambian plant is running, government is to buy medicines worth at least US$25 million a year in 2026 and 2027, manufactured and supplied from Akums’ facilities in India. That may secure supply during construction. It also means about US$50 million of public procurement flows to Indian production before a single Zambian tablet is made, and it raises a fair question about how much of the partnership’s value will stay in Zambia.
The deal should be judged by what Zambia can do once the factory opens, not by whether it opens. Technology transfer does not happen because a joint venture exists. It has to show up in measurable results: Zambian staff trained, local technical expertise in place, and Zambian employees running manufacturing, quality assurance and production management. The public also needs to see the agreement’s financial commitments, procurement terms, performance obligations and expected returns.
In March 2026 a motion was brought before Parliament seeking to rescind and renegotiate the venture’s terms. Zambia should work with international pharmaceutical companies. The question the motion raises is whether this partnership is designed to build domestic capability, or whether it risks locking the country into long term dependence on an outside supplier.
Can procurement preference build a competitive industry?
Only for a while. Statutory Instrument No. 45 of 2025 gives preferential treatment in public procurement to locally produced goods, including medicines. Products made locally with at least 35 per cent local content can receive a margin of preference.
There is a sound argument for this. New manufacturers entering a market dominated by large international suppliers may not survive without some early support, and government demand gives them a predictable reason to invest. But preference should help firms become competitive, not shelter them for good. If local medicines stay more expensive, supply unreliably or fall short on quality, procurement rules will not create a lasting industry, and the health budget will carry the cost.
Medicines are not ordinary goods. Their quality affects patient safety and treatment outcomes directly, so any decision to favour a local supplier must still rest on safety, efficacy and quality. The regulations recognise this: preference does not apply where local goods fail regulatory requirements or where manufacturers cannot meet demand.
That puts ZAMRA at the centre. Its inspections of facilities and enforcement of Good Manufacturing Practice are what make local products trustworthy, not a hurdle firms clear to win contracts. The strategy targets World Health Organization Maturity Level 3 for ZAMRA by 2030. A growing industry needs a regulator that can keep pace. Without one, Zambia risks producing more medicines that patients and regional buyers do not trust.
Why Zambia needs a market beyond its borders
The domestic market may be too small, on its own, to justify the investment a competitive industry needs. Plants require heavy capital, specialised equipment, skilled staff and continuous quality systems. Those costs have to be spread across enough volume to bring the unit price down. A manufacturer selling only to Zambia’s public health system may never reach that volume.
Zambia borders eight countries and belongs to both COMESA and SADC, and the strategy names exports as part of the regional hub ambition. Proximity is not access, however. Exporters must meet each destination country’s regulatory requirements, hold quality steady and compete on price and delivery. Regional regulatory cooperation through ZAZIBONA, which lets member regulators assess medicines jointly, can lower some of those barriers.
Pharmaceutical manufacturing should therefore be treated as an export opportunity, not a project measured only by how much the domestic public sector buys. Selling to neighbouring countries, without the help of Zambian procurement preference, would be the clearest evidence that local firms can compete.
What should Zambia measure?
Government should publish regular data on:
- active manufacturing facilities and their capacity utilisation;
- the share of value added locally;
- compliance with internationally recognised quality standards;
- prices of local medicines against equivalent imports;
- the value of pharmaceutical exports.
Procurement preference needs its own assessment. If public purchasing is meant to stimulate local production, citizens should be able to see whether it is attracting investment, improving supply and giving value for public money.
For the ordinary Zambian, the measure is simpler. More local production should mean fewer stock outs at the clinic, prices that are no higher, and a health system less exposed to disruptions abroad. Factory output that does not deliver those things is an economic statistic, not a public health gain.
Zambia does not need to make every medicine locally, and trying to would waste scarce capital. A targeted list, chosen on national demand, technical capacity and regional sales potential, would use resources better. Nor does it need to end imports to become more self reliant. It needs to reduce its strategic vulnerabilities while building the ability to produce competitively.
The ambition is worth pursuing. The real measure will be whether Zambia can produce medicines well and affordably, and whether the skills built today can carry the industry once protection and preferential procurement are no longer enough.
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