An Interview with Saif al-Jaibeji of Iraq Health

RT: Thinking about standards now, as in any country there are government watchdogs, people will inspect factories, new medicines on the market have to be registered when they come into the country. How do you see the government oversight?

SJ: Before I get to that I would say that the pharmaceutical market in Iraq is a fantastic market, really an unbelievable market. I know some local companies in Dubai, and some other regional countries-they sell in Iraq more than they do in their own countries. Simply there are 30 million in Iraq and per capita expenditure on medicine in Iraq is high. They are really willing to pay for healthcare and that is just the mentality. So unlike in some places, if insurance doesn’t cover it, no one wants to buy it.

In Iraq because there is no insurance, you can pay anything for what the doctor says. Having said that, there are companies and drugs that are registered, but the registration and the bureaucracy takes time, and as the borders are not very controlled you have a number of counterfeit medications and some generic medication entering the country without a registration process of pricing which is very dangerous.

And of course the multinationals are trying to get the message across to the govt. that this cannot continue. If we have a local distributor and we agreed on a price you have to control the borders. So for example the price of a GSK product in Iraq is slightly higher than Lebanon. But when the border is not controlled, a local businessman can fly to Beirut, bring in some medication and sell it and it’s cheaper. And this is unfortunately what is happening.

If you just have a local distributor, it is not enough. You give them medicine and you don’t know what is happening to it. The best model is a hybrid model, you have a local distributor because it is hard to for a MNC to build a distribution system versus a local company who has been in Iraq for 30 years. The best model is having a coordination office working with the local distributor so you can be more aware of what is happening.