Today pharmaceuticals have become an indispensible part of health care system around the globe. Historically pharmaceuticals have played a vital role in the human development by improving the quality of life and reducing the time spent in the hospitals. Thanks to innovative pharmaceutical industry that almost all epidemics and chronic diseases are curable today. Due to its direct link with the welfare and well being of human beings pharmaceutical industry is of strategic importance for the development of a healthy and productive nation. Today pharmaceutical industry is considered to be one of the largest and rapidly growing global industries. It is a major source of employment generation and foreign exchange earnings for many countries around the globe.

However, despite all these extraordinary achievements it’s a harsh reality that annually more than 2.3 million people die across the world, mostly in low income developing countries, due to unavailability and inaccessibility of necessary medicines . Many developing countries, including some OIC member countries, has insufficient or no manufacturing capacities in the pharmaceutical industry. Local industry covers a tiny fraction of domestic pharmaceutical demand and they rely heavily on imports and medicinal aid. In addition, the share of medicines in “Out-of-pocket” health payments (i.e. paid by the patient) is ranging between 40 to 60 % in these countries. Consequently, medicines are neither available nor accessible to a large fraction of population and hundreds and thousands of people die of preventable and treatable diseases. This outlook report is a humble attempt to investigate the availability of medicines in OIC member countries by focusing on the production, consumption and trade patterns of pharmaceuticals in these countries in the period 2000-2007.

Online Electronic Version

Pharmaceutical Industry in the OIC Member Countries: Prospects and Challenges (English) (French)