Introduction
Nigeria’s pharmaceutical story was once little more than a shopping list: imported medicines, imported active pharmaceutical ingredients, imported machinery and, finally, a national argument about price. That model is beginning to change. The more difficult question is whether the current momentum is strong enough to turn Nigeria from a large consumer market into a globally competitive manufacturing base.
The momentum is real, the Presidential Initiative for Unlocking the Healthcare Value Chain (PVAC) says at least eleven pharmaceutical manufacturing projects are due for commissioning this year, 2026, while four pharmaceutical companies ranked among the ten best-performing firms on the Nigerian Exchange in 2025. According to PVAC national coordinator, Abdu Mukhtar, this list that has long belonged to banks and oil companies now accommodates pharmaceutical companies. Coherent Market Insights values the pharmaceutical domestic market at $3.34 billion in 2026, projecting 9.5 per cent annual growth through 2033, although this estimate vary widely. Nigeria already accounts for about 60 per cent of drug manufacturing in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) region.
The Ambition of Self-Sufficiency for Nigeria’s Pharmaceutical Industry
Notwithstanding, the perspective of self-sufficiency depends on the party asked. Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Group of Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (PMG-MAN) put the ratio of imported to locally made essential medicines at about 50:50 and says imported finished products fell from 4.03 billion units to 1.13 billion units by 2025. The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) put import dependence at around 60 per cent late last year, 2025. The Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN) says it is still above 70 per cent. These figures are not necessarily irreconcilable. Finished-dose volume, market value, active ingredients, biologics, vaccines and medical devices measure different parts of the value chain. Nigeria has localised the formulation of many common medicines more quickly than it has localised high-value inputs, complex therapies and advanced manufacturing technology.
The quest for self-sufficiency also has a policy flavour. The Executive Order of October 2024 removed tariffs, excise duties and VAT on pharmaceutical machinery, active ingredients, excipients, reagents and packaging for two years, as well as promised framework contracts and volume guarantees. As at 2025, the Customs began applying the exemptions and the Federal Ministry of Health reports that over ?6 billion in waivers was accessed by 47 manufacturers between March and August 2025, out of 115 enrolled. The tax reforms, which produced the Nigeria Tax Act 2025, added to this shift from 1 January. Under the Nigerian Tax Act 2025, pharmaceutical products moved from VAT-exempt to zero-rated. This is beyond semantics, seeing that it was formerly exempt. What the exemption did was to trap input VAT inside the cost of production and pass it on to the patient; zero-rating makes it recoverable, and the Act widened recovery to cover services and fixed assets. For a capital-heavy plant, that is cash flow rather than paperwork.
Capital is also a factor in the consideration of self-sufficiency and we see an example of this in Emzor’s $23 million active ingredient plant in Sagamu, which as at 2025 reported a 90 percent completion, with five antimalarial ingredients already synthesised, the first facility of its kind in sub-Saharan Africa. Codix Bio, also in Sagamu, now holds a World Health Organization (WHO) sublicence to manufacture 147 million rapid test kits. However, the most asset in the aforementioned is not a factory or an ingredient plant. It is NAFDAC’s rebenching success. WHO engages a Global Benchmarking tool using tiers- ML1, ML2, ML3 and ML4. These tiers evaluate national regulatory agencies (NRAs) for medicines and vaccines. WHO’s rating of NAFDAC at ML3, June 2025, means we have a stable, well-functioning, and integrated regulatory system. This makes NAFDAC the first African regulator to sustain that rating. At ML3, the country can credibly manufacture vaccines. Notwithstanding, the goal should be Maturity Level 4 (ML4). ML4 is the highest level, representing an advanced, continuously improving system that operates at international standards. At ML4, NAFDAC is sure to be an export gate, interestingly, NAFDAC has closed 27 of its 57 indicators to ascend to that rating. Getting an accession to Level 4 will give us credibility in joining the African Medicines Agency, which helps, in parallel, cut duplicate approvals across a regional market of roughly 460 million people. Thus, until ML4 is done, ‘global hub’ is a statement of intent, not of standing.
CONCLUSION
Nigeria is not yet a global pharmaceutical manufacturing hub. It is, however, closer to making that ambition credible than it has been in decades. The decisive test will not be the number of new factories announced, but whether those factories can secure reliable power and finance, source more inputs locally, meet international quality standards, win transparent procurement contracts and export competitively. Policy ambition has opened the door. Procurement discipline, regulatory consistency and patient industrial policy will determine whether Nigeria walks through it.