Pharmaceutical sales to Egypt’s private sector, namely privately owned pharmacies, recorded a slight growth in August reaching EGP 6.8bn in sales, according to local media reports.

The latest figures reflect a growth of 3.4% year-on-year (y-o-y) and 2.3% quarter-on-quarter (q-o-q) during the month.

For the first eight months of 2020, total sales through the private sector grew marginally by 0.49% y-o-y amounting to a total of EGP 50.7bn.

This is good news for leading Egyptian pharmaceutical manufacturers, Rameda  and EIPICO, as the indications point towards a steady recovery in the third quarter (Q3) of 2020. This follows on from the 10%-15% drop in volumes of direct sales reported in Q2 of this year.

Also in August, Medical Union Pharmaceutical (MUP) reported a 2.7% rise in sales y-o-y, to total EGP 154.8m. The company’s latest figures reflected growth of 5.3% y-o-y, to EGP1.112bn, in the first eight months of 2020, with a market share of 2.2%.

Overall, Egypt has a total of 155 pharmaceutical factories, in addition to 44 factories that are currently under construction. There are also 1,200 pharmaceutical trading companies nationwide.