Drive drug production domestically

ALLOW me to comment on the recent signing of a medicine supply contract with Borneo Pacific, a company owned by Martin Poh who has received cumulative contracts approved through CSTB and NEC since 2000 to the tune of K1 billion.
The supplier has not committed itself to set up a manufacturing plant to make generic drugs like paracetamol and antibiotics but is still importing.
Why is there no domestic manufacturing and technology transfer to help alleviate supply shortage problems year in and year out?
In 2015, India made a commitment to the Papua New Guinea prime minister to set up pharmaceutical manufacturing plant in PNG to service the Pacific, but it’s likely that Fiji has been selected instead.
Despite all that, PNG’s position is that it will not import any generic drugs manufactured by Fiji or anyone else whose own domestic market is small and cannot support the production capacity.
I am raising this as an agenda for the new government to drive drug production domestically to also help provide jobs and trigger spinoff activities.

Galaxy Spencer
NCD
Via email