The Pulse | Economy | South Asia

Pakistan, China Sign $850 Million Deals to Boost Pharmaceutical Cooperation

The costs of Pakistan’s dependence on imports for medicines and vaccines are huge. Chinese investment could end this reliance.

Health workers vaccinate a 2-year-old child during a polio vaccination campaign in January 2015 in a rural area of Tehsil Fateh Jang, Punjab in Pakistan.

Last week, Pakistan and Chinese companies signed agreements worth $850 million at the Pakistan-China Pharmaceutical and Healthcare B2B Investment Conference in Islamabad.

Held on July 17 and 18, the event focused on vaccine production, active pharmaceutical ingredients (API), medical devices, clinical trials, and related pharmaceutical subsectors. It brought together 146 Chinese companies with around 220 delegates and more than 200 Pakistani firms, marking one of the largest China-Pakistan business engagements in the pharmaceutical, healthcare, and biotechnology sectors.

Federal Health Minister Mustafa Kamal announced on July 18 that 16 contracts and 80 memoranda of understanding had been finalized during the event. He termed the development a key economic milestone for cooperation between China and Pakistan in the pharmaceutical sector. The deals signed and the scope of the expected cooperation mark a clear shift toward industrial collaboration between the two countries, beyond the limited trade exchanges of earlier years.

Notably, Pakistan’s dependence on imported vaccines and pharmaceutical inputs remains critical. For instance, the country administers 13 vaccines under its national immunization program, and all these vaccines are imported. Moreover, while Pakistan manufactures about 85 percent of its finished medicines locally, it imports around 95 percent of the API required to produce them. The country’s dependency also extends to imports for essential vaccines and specialized medicines. This essentially means that Pakistan’s healthcare system is vulnerable to global shipping delays, currency shifts, cuts in foreign aid, and changes in donors’ priorities.

For its 240 million people, the consequences of vaccine import dependency are huge.

For instance, vaccine-preventable diseases, such as measles, diphtheria, polio, and rabies continue to affect people, especially children. At times, shortages and delayed shipments force health authorities to ration doses or postpone campaigns. In other cases, thousands of children die every year in Pakistan simply due to non-vaccination because their parents do not pay any heed to the importance of immunization. In this context, a lack of awareness and persistent vaccine shortages highlight a long-standing challenge within Pakistan’s pharmaceutical sector.

The government, it seems, is now pursuing broader pharmaceutical reforms with Chinese support to open an industry that has remained underdeveloped........

© The Diplomat