Penicillin prices have reportedly skyrocketed to EGP 250 on the black market, from an original EGP 7 for local products and EGP 9 for imports, due to a severe shortage in supply, head of the Egyptian Center for the Right to Medicine Mahmoud Fouad tells Al Shorouk.
Health Ministry spokesperson Khaled Megahed refuted these reports, saying that the ministry has been supplying the market and recently signed for another shipment of 1 mn units. The alleged shortage has revived pharma companies’ push to raise med prices, which Sun Pharma’s General Manager Hany Mashaal said is necessary to offset companies’ losses on several products. Mashaal’s statement comes after the Federation of Egyptian Industries’ (FEI) pharma division took to the House of Representatives last week to make their case that the pharma industry is going through a “tough time” because med prices have been stable since January in a high-inflation environment.