THE ministry of health, through the Namibia Medicines Regulatory Council, has confirmed that there are two registered pharmaceutical manufacturers in the country, Fabupharm and Africure.
This was confirmed on Thursday by the ministry’s spokesperson Walter Kamaya, who said, “Both are now registered to do full-scale manufacturing.”
The regulatory council was last year approached by the Central Procurement Board of Namibia (CPBN) to confirm whether there were local manufacturers of pharmaceutical products registered with the council.
This is after the health ministry, under which the regulatory council resorts, approached CPBN for the direct procurement of pharmaceuticals.
“In our response to CPBN, we confirmed two registered pharmaceutical manufacturers in Namibia – Fabupharm and Afripharm. Fabupharm does full manufacturing, and Africure was registered for packaging only at the time of the inquiry in March 2022,” said Kamaya.
He explained that manufacturing as per the Medicines and Related Substances Control Act of 2003 is defined as anyone with the means to carry out operations, including the purchasing of material, processing, packaging, quality control, release and storage of medicinal products and related substances.
Fabupharm’s founder Fannie Badenhorst also explained that the products in their tender bid are products that they manufacture.
He said the company has been supplying the government’s Central Medical Stores, local retailers and pharmacies with a range of their products for over 30 years.
“Three of the 38 [products] are being contract manufactured for us until our new tablets plant is approved. Fabupharm supplied these 38 products to the Central Medical Store on previous tenders also,” he said.
CPBN is still evaluating the direct procurement tender in which Fabupharm stands as the only bidder.
