Domestic medicine production is essential for Tanzania’s health security. But the Government must resolve three fundamental problems: an undefined target, weak industrial foundations, and a system that trains biotechnology graduates without clearly recognising and deploying them.
Tanzania’s ambition to manufacture more medicines locally should receive support across the political divide. A country that depends heavily on imported medicines, laboratory products and medical supplies remains vulnerable to foreign-exchange pressures, international supply disruptions and changing donor priorities.
Tanzania’s pharmaceutical dependence may drain foreign exchange equivalent to roughly one-third of the entire Ministry of Health budget, or almost the Ministry’s whole annual recurrent budget.
The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the danger of depending on other countries during a global emergency. Recent uncertainty surrounding international health assistance provides another warning. Tanzania must develop the capacity to manufacture essential medicines, diagnostics and medical supplies domestically. However, ambition must be supported by a credible plan.
Speaking at the 27th scientific conference of the Tanzania Pharmaceutical Technologists Association (TAPHATA) in Arusha, Health Minister Mohamed Mchengerwa reportedly said Tanzania aims to manufacture 70 per cent of its medicine requirements by 2030.
The Ministry of Health reported on October 13, 2026, that domestic production currently meets approximately 20 per cent of national demand.
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Moving from 20 per cent to 70 per cent means expanding the domestic share three-and-a-half times. If this were achieved over four years, while demand remained unchanged, it would require average compound growth of approximately 37 per cent every year.
Actual production would need to grow even faster because Tanzania’s population and demand for medicines are also increasing. This is not impossible merely because it is difficult. But three major problems must be addressed before the target can be considered credible.
Undefined target
The first problem is surprisingly basic: the Government has not consistently stated what percentage it intends to achieve. In January 2026, Minister Mchengerwa said Tanzania intended to increase domestic production from approximately 10 per cent to 65 per cent by 2030.
In May, the Medical Stores Department published an official statement setting the target at 80 per cent by 2030. On October 13, the Ministry of Health informed Parliament that the target was more than 60 per cent.
A subsequent report of the Minister’s TAPHATA address placed the target at 70 per cent. Is the official target 60, 65, 70 or 80 per cent?
The Government must also explain what the percentage measures. Is it the proportion of products by number, production volume or financial value? Does it cover only human medicines, or does it combine medical devices, laboratory reagents and other health products?
These are not minor technical questions.
A country might manufacture many low-cost products locally while continuing to import almost all expensive and strategically important medicines. Alternatively, it could count locally packaged products as domestic production even when the active pharmaceutical ingredients are imported.
A credible plan must establish one official target, define precisely what is being measured and provide annual milestones for 2027, 2028, 2029 and 2030.
Lacking industrial foundation
The second problem is the gap between attracting potential investors and producing quality-assured medicines at scale. The Government reports that 83 investors have expressed interest, 57 have undergone evaluation and discussion, and only six have reached stages approaching project implementation.
It has also allocated 386 of the 400 acres at the Mloganzila pharmaceutical industrial area to 11 qualifying investors.
However, an expression of interest is not a functioning factory, and allocated land is not medicine production. Before producing medicines commercially, an investor must secure finance, construct specialised facilities, install and validate machinery, recruit qualified personnel, establish laboratories and quality-management systems, pass Good Manufacturing Practice inspections and register individual products.
A World Bank diagnostic of pharmaceutical manufacturing in Tanzania identified expensive utilities, inadequate research infrastructure, difficulties accessing finance and heavy dependence on imported raw materials among the major constraints facing the industry.
A 2026 peer-reviewed study involving Tanzanian manufacturers and regulatory institutions similarly identified high-interest loans, expensive Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) compliance, outdated machinery, shortages of specialised personnel and competition from cheaper imported products.
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Tanzania also imports most active pharmaceutical ingredients and excipients used in manufacturing. Consequently, a tablet may be formulated and packaged in Tanzania while its therapeutic ingredient remains imported. Domestic formulation is valuable, but it is not complete pharmaceutical independence.
The Government must therefore distinguish between packaging, basic formulation, production of complex medicines and eventual manufacturing of selected pharmaceutical ingredients. Otherwise, products may carry a “Made in Tanzania” label while the country remains dependent on foreign suppliers for the materials required to make them.
Manufacturers also need a predictable market. They require transparent multi-year procurement plans, reliable demand forecasts, committed purchasing volumes and timely payment.
MSD states that it currently imports approximately 80 per cent of medicines and 90 per cent of medical supplies. Replacing a substantial proportion of those imports requires a product-by-product procurement and production plan.
The Tanzania Pharmaceutical Industries Limited (TPI) factory in Arusha provides an immediate accountability test. In January, Minister Mchengerwa directed that TPI should begin manufacturing antiretroviral medicines by June 2026. The Ministry reported that Sh20 billion would be allocated to support the start of production.
Yet a report published on October 23 still referred to the factory as being revived to manufacture ARVs, without publishing commercial production volumes. The public should be told whether the money was released, whether production began, whether the plant obtained the necessary GMP approvals and how many locally manufactured ARV tablets have been supplied to MSD.
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If implementation cannot be publicly demonstrated at one highly visible factory, citizens have reason to question how the much larger national promise will be achieved.
Trained but unrecognised experts
The third problem concerns the people expected to make this industrial transformation possible.
Tanzania already trains biotechnology graduates. The Tanzania Commission for Universities (TCU) recognises biotechnology-related programmes at institutions including Sokoine University of Agriculture, the University of Dodoma and Mbeya University of Science and Technology.
Sokoine University states that its Biotechnology and Laboratory Science programme prepares graduates for work in biomedical research, diagnostic laboratories, pharmaceuticals, agriculture, forensic science, environmental management and food industries.
However, Tanzania’s publicly available professional framework does not clearly provide biotechnology graduates with a consistent professional home.
TCU’s published list of professional registration bodies and their corresponding programmes associates Medical Laboratory Science qualifications with the Health Laboratory Practitioners Council. Biotechnology qualifications are not clearly assigned to a comparable statutory professional body.
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The Biotechnology Society of Tanzania promotes research, awareness and professional collaboration, but it is registered as a non-governmental organisation. It does not have the statutory responsibilities of a professional council that recognises qualifications, defines scopes of practice, registers practitioners and enforces professional standards.
Biotechnology graduates face regulatory limbo. Tanzania lacks a clear professional registration and licensing pathway for these experts, making it difficult for many to secure employment, even in the private pharmaceutical and laboratory sectors.
The Government cannot deliver an ambitious medicines-manufacturing plan while leaving this essential workforce outside the recognised professional system; it must establish appropriate registration, defined scopes of practice and pathways into bioprocessing, research and quality-control roles.
There is also no clearly published and nationally applied Scheme of Service that establishes biotechnology as a consistent public-service cadre with defined job titles, entry qualifications, responsibilities, salary grades and career progression.
Some institutions have managed to advertise individual positions for biotechnologists, research officers or laboratory scientists. This demonstrates that biotechnology graduates are not entirely excluded from public employment. But these scattered posts do not constitute a coherent national workforce system.
The result is a serious contradiction: Tanzania invests public resources in training biotechnology graduates, while its employment and professional structures do not consistently know how to recognise, recruit, regulate or promote them.
This will directly affect the pharmaceutical-manufacturing programme.
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Biotechnology expertise is required for fermentation, cell culture, recombinant medicines, vaccines, biological diagnostics, microbiological quality control, biosafety and the manufacture of biological pharmaceutical products.
Without these experts, Tanzania may expand the production of relatively simple tablets, syrups, creams and packaging while remaining dependent on imports for vaccines, insulin, advanced diagnostics, biological medicines and other technologically complex products.
Factories may be constructed and equipped, but foreign investors may still need to bring in their own specialists. Technology and production knowledge could remain with foreign companies rather than being transferred sustainably to Tanzanian professionals.
Qualified local graduates may remain unemployed, accept unrelated work or leave the country. Tanzania would then bear the cost of educating them without receiving the national benefit of their expertise.
Regulatory institutions will also require biotechnology specialists. TMDA’s Strategic Plan for 2026/27–2030/31 acknowledges that its expanding regulatory workload is not fully matched by existing staffing, inspection capacity and financial resources.
As Tanzania claims to move towards biological products, advanced diagnostics and other complex technologies, the regulator will need appropriately trained specialists to assess manufacturing processes, inspect facilities and protect patients.
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The Government must therefore establish recognised occupational pathways for medical, industrial and agricultural biotechnology. It should approve an appropriate Scheme of Service, clarify professional registration, and create biotechnology positions within TMDA, MSD, NIMR, public laboratories and government-supported pharmaceutical factories.
Companies receiving public land, tax incentives or government purchasing commitments should also be required to provide industrial placements, apprenticeships and measurable technology transfer to Tanzanian scientists.
These three gaps must be addressed: define the target, build the industrial foundation and recognise the biotechnology professionals whose expertise the plan requires.
Tanzania needs pharmaceutical self-reliance. But the country cannot manufacture 70 per cent of its medicines through political declarations alone. Success must not be measured by conferences held, investors contacted, agreements signed or acres allocated.
It must be measured by operational factories, Tanzanian experts employed, quality medicines produced, health-facility shortages reduced and patients protected from high prices.
Tanzania cannot become a pharmaceutical-manufacturing country while sidelining the scientists expected to manufacture its most important products.
Dr Elizabeth Benedict is a public health and health management specialist and health sector spokesperson for the ACT Wazalendo party. She can be reached at elizabethbenedict2013@gmail.com or on X as @DrBSanga. The opinions expressed here are the writer’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of The Chanzo. If you are interested in publishing in this space, please contact our editors at editor@thechanzo.com.
