Ghana is moving to build a domestic capacity for producing active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), the core components that give medicines their therapeutic effects, as part of a strategy to reduce the country’s heavy reliance on imported drugs.
Presidential Adviser Augustus Goosie Tanoh, who heads the 24‑Hour Economy and Accelerated Export Development Programme, told the Africa Bio Conference on October 27 that about 70 per cent of medicines used in Ghana are imported and that local manufacturers depend heavily on foreign suppliers for raw materials.
Tanoh urged the country to shift from merely assembling finished medicines to producing the active ingredients themselves, saying, “Ghana does not produce that active ingredient. We must begin to produce it.”
The proposal includes a 2,000‑acre Legon Pharmaceutical Innovation Park, a joint venture under the 24‑Hour Economy Programme and Zeme Biohub Limited. The park is expected to support pharmaceutical manufacturing, research, diagnostics and medical‑device production, while offering opportunities for researchers and start‑ups to turn innovations into marketable products.
He stressed the need for stronger collaboration among researchers, investors and regulators to ensure locally manufactured medicines meet safety, quality and efficacy standards. Priority would be given to drugs for diabetes and other non‑communicable diseases, which account for a significant share of deaths in Ghana.
Meanwhile, the President of Sena Institute of Technology and CEO of Zeme Biohub, highlighted inadequate infrastructure and funding as major obstacles to the biotechnology sector. He noted that many Ghanaian innovations remain confined to laboratories and fail to reach the market, adding, “All the things we learn or we produce in Ghana, they are in the lab. They are on the shelf; they can’t get into the market.”
The hub aims to bridge the gap between research and commercial production, providing infrastructure to support innovation, create jobs and help locally developed technologies reach the market, thereby making technology more accessible and enabling Ghanaian innovators to commercialise their products locally.
As the plan moves forward, stakeholders will need to secure the necessary investment and infrastructure to bring the vision of a self‑sufficient pharmaceutical industry to fruition.
