The Pharmaceutical Industry in Kenya
Abstract
Kenya's Pharmaceutical sector has grown significantly since 1936. Most of the manufacturing units were established in the 1970's. Currently, the sector is dominated by foreign firms.
This study investigates various issues that have proven significant in the development of the Pharmaceutical sector in other Less Developed Countries (LDCs) . These issues relate to technology transfer, capacity utilisation, transfer pricing, use of generic and brandnames, bulk purchasing, and protection of local manufacturers.
This study demonstrates that, whereas the rate of capacit utilisation is only 21%,,the local manufacturers are not l protected by the tariff structure, when competing against imports. 'V
Through restrictive technology transfers, Kenya has lost a lot of foreign exchange. In addition, many pharmaceutical raw materials and finished drugs imported
into Kenya are highly overpriced, especially by Multi-
• • »
national Corporations (MNCs). This raises the strong suspicion that some MNCs could be involved in transfer pricing.
Also, the investigation reveals wide price differences
between generic and branded drugs distributed in Kenya. Thus, the
•%
consumers who buy drugs mider brandnames are burdened.
Publisher
University of Nairobi
Subject
Pharmaceutical industry, KenyaRights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United StatesUsage Rights
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/Collections
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