Pharmaceuticals in question: How authentic are medications in Egypt?

A huge and powerful industry in the country, pharmaceuticals in Egypt has been a rigid sector for decades, with 86 percent of medication given to Egyptians manufactured locally. But how good are these products? And how big is the counterfeit sector in medication? Are local medications as good as imported ones?
In a bid to answer these questions, Egypt's Ministry of Health, with the cooperation of private-sector pharmaceutical company Novartis, held a conference on 28 October to address the efficacy and safety of drugs on the Egyptian market.

"I, as a doctor in that field, wish that there would come a day when cancer patients are given medicines that are manufactured in their own country," started Dr Hussein Khaled, ex-minister of higher education, underlining that strategies to advance the pharmaceutical industry in Egypt have to go hand-in-hand with monitoring the safety of available medicines.

"The ultimate goal is always the wellbeing of the patient and this will never be attained but by properly ensuring that he gets the right quality of medication," he said.

According to the Ministry of Health, some 1,700 warehouses and 56,300 pharmacies were closely inspected in 2014.