After graduating three years ago, Dr. Razan Hamza worked briefly in the “before life”, the one that preceded the collapse of Lebanon, from 2019. Access to health there was already unequal, but the medical offer was plethoric in the capital, and the drugs available in abundance, in pharmacies. At the primary health center of the Arab University of Beirut (BAUHC), a private dispensary located in the Tarik el-Jdide district, where the consultation costs 15,000 Lebanese pounds (LL, less than 1 dollar on the black market), the young GP sees the radical change at work: “Practitioners were used to prescribing original, imported drugs. They have become too expensive or unobtainable. Alternatives need to be identified. »
In this upset landscape, Lebanese products are expanding rapidly. Their share was marginal before the crisis: imported drugs (for 1.3 billion dollars, or 1.2 billion euros, in 2018) held the bulk of the market. “The volumes of local products have increased. New drugs have also appeared. confirms a pharmacist, who wishes to remain anonymous.
According to her, the drastic drop in purchasing power and the waves of shortages of imported products have led to new behaviors. “Clients, who previously relied only on Western products, convinced that the standards were better, are turning to Lebanese medicines and finding that they are effective. This also allows them to avoid shortages: certain imported products are distributed in dribs and drabs by agents, in a logic of profit [liée à la fluctuation de la monnaie locale face au dollar] », she says.
“The country had to be up against the wall”
Although it is old, the local pharmaceutical sector has long suffered from a lack of recognition, in an economy monopolized by imports, and from a lack of state support. Pharmacists also had little interest in promoting Lebanese medicines, because of the wider margins on imported ones. A state subsidy mechanism made these easily affordable. Thus, everyone swore by Panadol (American), while paracetamol is produced locally: today, the first costs three times more than the Lebanese generic.
Subsidies granted to local industry (on imported raw materials) were increased, at the end of March, to 5 million dollars, out of a total envelope of subsidies of 25 million dollars monthly
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