ASSESMENT ON CHALLENGES OF MULTINATIONAL PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES OPERATING IN ETHIOPIA

Abstract

Multinational company is a company engages in international business when it conducts any business functions beyond its domestic borders. These multinational drug manufacturing company are operating through local import agents which manage the import and distribution process of pharmaceutical products that cover a wide ranges of therapeutic area including infection, diabetes, cardio vascular and others. The General objective of the study was to assess challenges of multinational pharmaceutical companies operating in Ethiopia. The study used both primary data and secondary data that were collected through a semi-structured questionnaire, & interview for quantitative and qualitative analysis. The study found that there are five challenges facing the companies like shortage of foreign exchange, import regulation, registration, licensing and inspection and custom control. Finally from the study it can be concluded there is Insufficient of foreign exchange for importation of pharmaceutical products, weak government support for pharmaceutical importation, bureaucratic procedure and extended paper work in banks during importation, illegal competitors are involved in import and distribution to the medicine outlets, The government is lacking adequate regulatory measure/enforcement on violations of the licensing rules and the inspection procedure is lacking transparency and exposed to corruption, complex document and more than a year is required during the registration process, the custom clearance authority takes a long period of time to process the shipments, and generic drug producer with low price strategy affect the marketing activities of MNPC. Based on these findings, the study recommends that give forex priority for pharmaceutical importers, minimizing bureaucratic approaches, increase quality of service in custom and conduct a random testing of products to find counterfeit product.