The head of the manufacturing committee at the Pharmacists Syndicate, Mahfouz Ramzi, announced that the prices of chronic disease medications – such as diabetes and blood pressure medications – will increase by at least 20 percent or 25 percent.
In a phone interview on the “Happens in Egypt ” program, he explained that, “Pharmaceutical companies have submitted requests to raise the prices of their products by 50 percent due to the change in the exchange rate of the Egyptian pound against the dollar. However, there is no such thing as a 50 percent increase in drug prices at once, and the relevant authorities are currently studying the price increase.”
He confirmed that the least expensive medications will be subject to the highest price increase.
The head of the Drug Division at the Chambers of Commerce, Ali Auf, estimated the volume of Egyptians’ drug consumption in 2023 at around LE135 billion, an increase of more than 15 percent compared to 2022, which witnessed sales worth LE117.7 billion, Al-Arabiya Business reported.
Awf anticipates drug sales in Egypt to rise to LE150 billion this year, with a growth of more than 11 percent.
The Egyptian market includes more than 170 drug factories and hundreds of contract manufacturing companies, in addition to 70,000 pharmacies and 1200 drug warehouses, based on estimates by the Drug Industry Chamber at the Federation of Industries and the Drug Division at the Chambers of Commerce.
