Abstract
BMI calculates Kenya’s pharmaceutical expenditure to have been
KES15.85bn (US$229mn) in 2008. By
2013, we expect the total amount spent
on prescription and over-the-counter (OTC) medicines to have
reached a
value of KES31.13bn (US$522mn), equating to a compound annual growth rate
(CAGR) of
14.46% in local currency terms. However, the country’s
underdeveloped healthcare system has meant that
drug expenditure has
fallen from 0.84% of GDP in 2004 to just 0.75% of GDP in 2008. BMI
calculates
that by 2013 drug expenditure will decline further, to just
0.65% of GDP.
In BMI’s Business Environment Rankings for Q409, Kenya
has remained in 15th place in the Middle
East and Africa (MEA) region,
above Nigeria and Zimbabwe, and its overall pharmaceutical rating has
also
remained at 32.2. Globally Kenya is ranked in 69th position, above Nigeria and
Zimbabwe and below
Ukraine and Venezuela.
Kenya’s first ever
anti-counterfeit bill was signed into law in January 2009. However, it defines
the
process of counterfeiting as ‘the manufacture, production,
packaging, re-packaging, labelling or making,
whether in Kenya or
elsewhere, of any goods whereby those protected goods are imitated in such
manner
and to such a degree that those other goods are identical or
substantially similar copies of the protected
goods’. As a result,
in July 2008, several NGOs and HIV/AIDS patients challenged the
Anti-Counterfeit
Bill and filed a lawsuit against the Kenyan government.
They claimed the Bill was not looking after the
interests of the
country’s HIV/AIDS patients, as it reduces access to cheap generic HIV
medicines. The
majority of Kenya’s HIV/AIDS patients rely on
imported first-line generic antiretrovirals (ARVs)
including 3TC
(lamivudine), AZT (zidovudine) and NVP (nevirapine).
Additionally, in July
2009 the Kenyan government launched the Mission for Essential Drugs (Meds),
a
quality control lab accredited by the World Health Organization (WHO).
There are also plans to
computerise the medicine supply chain system in
order to monitor drugs from the procurement to the
consumption stage. BMI
welcomes the government’s efforts to stop the country’s citizens
from
consuming sub-standard counterfeit medicines that are prevalent
across all classes of drugs.
In April 2009, Dawa Limited was accused of
selling unregistered drugs to the country’s citizens. The
Pharmacy
and Poisons Board (PPB), responsible for the registration of pharmaceuticals
and medical
devices in Kenya, has said that only 35 of Dawa’s
products are currently registered. The company
manufactures and sells over
100 generic medicines in Kenya, including analgesics, anti-malarials and
antibiotics. Furthermore, in June 2009, the Kenyan government banned the
drugmaker from carrying out
any business with the Kenya Medical Supplies
Agency (KEMSA). It was claimed that the company had
imported drugs from
China but was going to sell them in the Kenyan market claiming that they
were
manufactured locally.
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