Egypt will stop dispensing imported insulin to patients covered by health insurance and state-funded treatment, Health Minister Khaled Abdel-Ghaffar said Tuesday, arguing that locally produced alternatives are equally effective and sufficient to meet domestic demand. Under the health ministry’s policy, its hospitals will also limit insulin dispensing to locally made products.
The decision affects about 2.5 million adults and 55,000 children with type 1 and type 2 diabetes and is expected to save the state about 4.2 billion Egyptian pounds ($84 million) a year. Patients have complained of shortages and higher prices for imported insulin at private pharmacies, while doctors and pharmacists are divided over the effectiveness of local alternatives and whether medicines should be prescribed by generic rather than brand names.
Abdel-Ghaffar said Egyptian insulin has been used under health insurance and state-funded treatment programs for a decade. “We have been using Egyptian medicine for these patients under health insurance or state-funded treatment for 10 years, so it has been tested,” he said.
Speaking at a press conference after Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly toured projects under the presidential Decent Life initiative in Gharbiya with several ministers, Abdel Ghaffar said Egypt now has four local insulin producers and no longer needs to import the drug. He said the policy is part of a broader effort to localize pharmaceutical production, including cancer drugs.
Abdel-Ghaffar said the Egyptian Drug Authority is monitored by the World Health Organization and has achieved “maturity level three,” arguing that local and international oversight provide sufficient safeguards for the quality and effectiveness of Egyptian-made medicines.
The minister had announced two days earlier that Egypt would halt insulin imports because local production was sufficient to meet demand. In televised remarks to host Mohamed Ali Khair on the “Al-Masry Effendi” program on Al-Shams TV, he said there was no justification for spending foreign currency on imported insulin when four equivalent products were made locally.
Abdel-Ghaffar said Egyptian insulin is produced using imported raw materials from major international pharmaceutical companies, including US-based Eli Lilly and Denmark’s Novo Nordisk, making imports of finished products unnecessary both economically and as a matter of pharmaceutical policy.
The decision prompted appeals from hundreds of families of diabetes patients who complained of “shortages and higher prices for imported insulin at private pharmacies.” Social media campaigns opposing the policy have used hashtags including “#InsulinIsARedLine,” “#OurChildren’sLivesAreNotALuxury” and “#InsulinIsARightNotALuxury.”
Ali Ouf, head of the Pharmaceuticals Division at the Federation of Egyptian Chambers of Commerce, and Mahfouz Ramzy, head of the Drug Manufacturing Committee at the Pharmacists Syndicate, backed the ministry’s position. Both said the complaints partly reflected doctors’ and patients’ preference for imported brands despite the availability of cheaper local alternatives.
Ouf told Al Manassa that the absence of a particular brand should not be confused with a shortage of the drug’s active ingredient. He called on the Medical Syndicate to require doctors to prescribe medicines by generic name rather than brand name, reducing dependence on specific products.
He also rejected the assumption that imported insulin is inherently better, saying doctors who make that claim should provide scientific evidence of any difference in effectiveness.
Khaled Amin, assistant secretary-general of the Medical Syndicate, disagreed, saying doctors choose treatments based on clinical experience and what they consider most effective and appropriate for each patient.
Amin told Al Manassa that generic prescribing would not solve drug shortages and could instead help pharmacists dispose of “slow-moving stock” while giving them greater discretion to select products without adequate controls. He also said the approach would be difficult to apply to medicines containing multiple compounds and active ingredients, as well as dietary supplements.
Ramzy similarly said there was no insulin shortage, arguing that some patients were fixated on imported products despite the availability of Egyptian alternatives. He told Al Manassa that some locally produced insulin costs half as much as imported products and said patients should use Egyptian versions when the active ingredient is the same.
