Nigeria’s renewed drive to manufacture medicines locally deserves recognition, but it also deserves a more rigorous test. The nation has introduced fiscal incentives, regulatory reforms, financing mechanisms and procurement initiatives to strengthen domestic pharmaceutical production. The most basic measure of import substitution tells a less encouraging story.
Nigeria imported pharmaceutical products worth $767.4 million in 2023, according to UN Comtrade data compiled by the World Bank. The figure fell to $653.5 million in 2024 but rose sharply to $766.2 million in 2025, almost exactly where it stood before the current healthcare manufacturing push gathered momentum.
‘If tax exemptions, cheaper financing, procurement guarantees and regulatory concessions merely make manufacturers comfortable without making medicines cheaper, better or more available, then the policy has simply transferred benefits to producers.’
PVAC, launched in October 2023, was conceived with an ambitious target to raise local production of healthcare products to 70 percent by 2030. The rationale is compelling, as Nigeria’s dependence on imported medicines, active pharmaceutical ingredients, and sophisticated medical equipment exposes the nation to foreign-exchange pressures, global supply disruptions, and decisions taken by multinational companies outside the nation.
The exits of GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi from direct commercial operations in Nigeria further exposed that vulnerability. The lesson was obvious, as a nation cannot guarantee healthcare security when too much of its essential supply chain depends on external producers.
The government has since taken several important steps. The October 2024 Executive Order introduced zero tariffs and excise duties on pharmaceutical machinery and equipment, waivers for some raw materials and active pharmaceutical ingredients, and measures to accelerate regulatory approvals. Financing pipelines have also emerged, including the pound 50 million facility provided by the European Investment Bank and the Bank of Industry to support healthcare manufacturers.
The proposed Medipool Programme, with its promise of long-term public procurement, could prove even more significant. Manufacturers do not need government protection forever but need sufficient certainty to justify investing in factories, technology and production capacity.
This is where our earlier concern about privileges for Nigerian drug manufacturers requires some qualification. Incentives are not inherently wrong. In fact, strategic infant-industry support can be justified where the objective is to build domestic capacity in a sector as critical as healthcare. The real question is whether those privileges produce measurable public value.
If tax exemptions, cheaper financing, procurement guarantees and regulatory concessions merely make manufacturers comfortable without making medicines cheaper, better or more available, then the policy has simply transferred benefits to producers.
But if those interventions create globally competitive Nigerian pharmaceutical companies, increase domestic production, reduce foreign-exchange exposure and eventually lower medicine costs, then the privileges become investments in national economic resilience.
There are encouraging signs, as the Federal Ministry of Health says local manufacturing now accounts for nearly half of healthcare products consumed in Nigeria, while registered pharmaceutical companies have increased from 180 in 2022 to more than 200 in 2025. Nigeria is also moving towards deeper pharmaceutical production, including plans for an active pharmaceutical ingredients manufacturing plant.
These are meaningful first steps, but the biggest concern is measurement. ‘Healthcare products’ is broader than pharmaceuticals, making it difficult to compare the government’s nearly 50-percent local-production claim directly with pharmaceutical import figures. Nigeria needs a transparent yearly scorecard showing exactly how much of medicines, APIs, vaccines, diagnostics, and medical devices are produced locally, how much is imported, and what the 70-percent target yearly means in measurable terms.
The 2025 import figures provide an important warning. After declining in 2024, pharmaceutical imports rebounded by 17 percent. If domestic production is genuinely replacing imports, that substitution must eventually become visible in the trade data.
Therefore, PVAC should neither be dismissed as a failure nor celebrated as a finished success. It is better understood as a programme taking one step at a time.
The first step was creating incentives. The next was mobilising finance. The next must be expanding production. But the decisive step is ensuring that Nigerian-made medicines can compete on price, quality, reliability, and scale.