Africa’s Pharmaceutical Packaging, Inks Set for Growth

The drive by African governments to reverse the current inadequate access to medicines is gaining momentum, as governments in the region announce new partnerships with pharmaceutical companies and development partners to scale up investment in the manufacturing of pharmaceutical products with more focus on vaccines.

Increasing pharmaceutical manufacturing in Africa would not only reduce dependence on imported human medicines, now estimated at 94% of the continent’s requirements, but would scale up Africa’s share of the global pharma production, now estimated at a mere 3%.

This trend is also expected to trigger increased demand for pharmaceutical packaging, for purposes of identification, protection and reliability. It would also increase the need for pharmaceutical packaging ink, which is used on the vaccine containers and also on the interior and exterior of medicine packs to ensure safety of consumers in this continent of 1.3 billion people.

Expanding Africa’s pharmaceutical production capacity, through the Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Plan for Africa (PMPA) spearheaded by Africa Union, a continental organization of 5