Pharma sector to significantly contribute in export: UBG

KARACHI: The pharmaceutical sector has great potential to further grow and contribute significantly in Pakistan’s export if the industry is facilitated by incentives, officials said.

United Business Group (UBG) Petron-In- Chief S M Muneer and President Zubair Tufail said that the pharmaceutical potential needs to be promoted in Pakistan so that this sector could hit the exports target of $5 billion in a few years and change the image of Pakistan.

The government should strive to raise annual pharmaceutical exports by extending incentives to the pharma sector as well as ensuring ease of doing business for the industry, they added.

The UBG officer bearers said that the government should focus on increasing pharmaceutical exports through tariff rationalisation, trade-related investment, institutional reforms, conducive-environment and easing business regulations.

They further said that the aggressive marketing drive may be designed to promote Pakistani products in new markets, which would greatly help increase the volume of pharmaceutical sector exports particularly in African and Saarc regions.

In the last two years, the value of the pharmaceutical sector of Pakistan was estimated to be around $3.2 billion while its total exports in 2020-21 stood at $218 million. The exports from the pharma sector accounted for only 0.9 per cent of Pakistan’s total exports to the world in 2020-21.

They said that the timing is right to focus on the pharmaceutical sector as the government desires to attain economic stability during its tenure.

The global pharmaceutical markets are in a flux due to major restructuring, there is an opportunity for Pakistan to enter the global off-patent drugs market that will be worth $700 billion in branded generics and $381 billion in generics by 2025.

Pakistan, with a local market of 215 million consumers and more than 700 pharmaceutical companies, is poised to gain from opportunities provided under these shuffling global patterns of supply and demand.

There are approximately 650 companies in the Pakistan pharmaceutical market out of which less than 30 are multinational companies.