Supply Chain

Poor-quality medical products are all too common in Africa, where substandard and falsified medicines kill nearly 500,000 people each year, according to the United Nations. The continent also has the highest prevalence of poor-quality medicines among low- and middle-income countries at 18.7 percent.

In Nigeria, the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), the national regulating authority for medical products, is prioritizing local production of medicines to ensure a safer supply of quality-assured medical products to protect patients and communities across the country and continent.

The globalization of the medicines supply chain has helped to increase access to quality medicines at a lower cost. At the same time, the supply chain has grown longer, more complex, and fragmented, leading to a lack of visibility and increase in the risk to its resilience. In many instances, globalization has also led to the concentration of production in a few geographies. Insights from USP’s Medicine Supply Map demonstrate that geographic concentration of pharmaceutical manufacturing anywhere in the world – including within the United States – increases the risk for drug shortages.