South Africa

South Africa’s Self-Medication & Prescription Drugs market and insights you need to know

South Africa’s Self-Medication and Prescription Drugs market is experiencing restructuring and modernization, proving that it could evolve into a promising market. 

South Africa’s self-medication and Rx mar­ket reached a value of 3,8 US$ billion in 2020. The market should be worth US$ 6,2 billion at the ex-factory price in 2035. Aspen is the leading corporation with an 11.6% market share and Mylan’s Atroiza was the leader in the market amongst all South-African brands in 2018. 

The growth of the OTC and pharma market will be dri­ven by the government’s health­care reforms, which include improv­ing access to health­care ser­vices by expand­ing National Health Insur­ance (NHI) cov­er­age to the entire South-African pop­u­la­tion. The full implementation of universal healthcare coverage is expected by 2026 but will depend on political and economical factors. 

South Africa is also mod­ernising its reg­u­la­tory struc­ture to speed up drug approvals and increase for­eign invest­ment in the coun­try. Under the old reg­u­la­tory regime, drug approvals took a long time and the process was not trans­par­ent, and this led many Pharma multi-­na­tion­als to con­sider invest­ing in other mar­kets where there was greater clar­ity, more stream-­lined processes, and less risk.

We at Chameleon Pharma Consulting Group think South Africa has a sunny future, and there’s no doubt that TRIUMPH countries will invest in South Africa. Con­tact us to find your best-fit­ting part­ners.