Egypt's pharma market hits $8.4bln in 2025, ranks 26th globally

Arab Finance: Egypt's pharmaceutical market grew by 37% year-on-year (YoY) in terms of the financial value, with its compound annual growth rate (CAGR) hitting around 15%, nearly double the global average, said the Egyptian Drug Authority (EDA) Chairman Ali El Ghamrawy.

Reflecting a strong national industry and ability to expand and face global challenges, the pharma market amounted to 4 billion units during 2025 to EGP 422 billion ($8.5 billion) in 2025.

On the sidelines of the fifth edition of the Africa Health ExCon, Al Ghamrawy outlined the authority's 2030 strategy to support the competitiveness and sustainability of the pharmaceutical sector and enhance Egypt's position as a regional and global hub for pharmaceutical manufacturing and regulation.

The positive performance helped Egypt advance to 26^th place globally in terms of pharmaceutical market size during 2025, jumping four places after it was ranked 30^th in 2024.

Al Ghamrawy affirmed that the EDA aims to further improve Egypt's ranking and position the country among the world's top 20 pharmaceutical markets by 2030.

Therefore, the authority is implementing a set of initiatives to boost innovation, expand access to innovative medicines, and update reference-country lists to accelerate the introduction of advanced treatments into the Egyptian market. This contributed to positioning the country among the world's 15 fastest countries in providing access to innovative medicines.

El Ghamrawy noted that the authority expanded the production of orphan drugs and biological products, which increased the number of products available in the market from 8,500 to over 10,000.

Regarding pharmaceutical localization, Egypt has adopted an integrated strategy to strengthen its manufacturing capabilities and reduce reliance on imports. Local production currently covers around 91% of consumed pharmaceutical products.

Moreover, the authority aims at localizing the production of the top 50 imported active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), which account for 78% of Egypt's total human pharmaceutical raw material imports.

As for pharmaceutical exports, the chairman noted that the pharmaceutical industry is the second-largest industrial sector in terms of export growth rates in Egypt, with exports reaching nearly $1.3 billion by the end of 2025.

Meanwhile, the EDA plans to raise exports value to $3 billion by 2030, of which $1.34 billion is allocated to African markets. This will be achieved by leveraging the African Single Procurement Platform (APPM) in line with international standards.

During the Africa Health ExCon, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly witnessed the signing of three strategic memoranda of understanding (MoUs) to advance pharmaceutical and healthcare systems in Africa.