Nigeria grants N24bn pharma tax waivers for 2025–2026

Nigeria’s federal government granted pharmaceutical manufacturers N24 billion in tax waivers across 2025 and 2026 to increase local drug production and reduce Nigeria’s dependence on imported medicines, Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare Muhammad Pate said.

Pate disclosed the decision on Tuesday at the 3rd Nigeria Health Sector Joint Annual Review in Abuja. He said an Executive Order (a presidential directive) signed by President Bola Tinubu in 2024 enabled the relief, with the stated aim of attracting investment into Nigeria’s healthcare value chain (the network of producers and suppliers serving the health system).

“The Executive Order signed by Mr President in 2024 has supported N24 billion in tax waivers for pharmaceutical manufacturers in 2025–2026,” Pate said.

What has the N24 billion in tax relief delivered?\n

The waiver represents a disclosed fiscal incentive for 2025 and 2026, not a completed measure of new production. Pate presented it as a way to draw capital into healthcare manufacturing and reduce import dependence. The announcement did not identify beneficiary companies, qualifying products, individual waiver amounts or production targets linked to the relief.

That gap matters for portfolio planning. A tax concession lowers a manufacturer’s effective cost, but the briefing supplied no data on additional output, jobs, product prices or import substitution achieved with the N24 billion. Those outcomes remain government objectives rather than reported results.

Which projects are operating, and which remain prospective?\n

The government has secured 12 technology-transfer agreements (arrangements for transferring manufacturing technology or know-how) and is pursuing prospective healthcare-manufacturing investments worth more than $5 billion. Pate said the immediate priority is converting those prospective investments into actual manufacturing that produces affordable healthcare products and creates jobs.

The $5 billion remains a prospective pipeline rather than committed operating capital. The source named no investors, projects, investment schedules or breakdown between foreign and domestic money. Officials described the 12 agreements as secured, but the briefing did not list counterparties or specify whether any had reached commercial production.

Under the government’s healthcare industrialisation programme, officials have commissioned 10 factories and manufacturing lines, including six in 2026. The commissioned capacity covers four product groups:

• Pharmaceuticals
• Rapid diagnostic tests
• Long-lasting insecticidal nets
• Medical oxygen

For portfolio managers, commissioning marks a facility milestone, but the announcement did not report plant capacity, utilisation, output or revenue. It therefore cannot establish whether the 10 units will supply national demand continuously or remain partly idle.

Which policies could make local production commercially viable?\n

Pate credited the Presidential Initiative for Unlocking the Healthcare Value Chain, coordinated by Abdu Mukhtar, for efforts to expand domestic manufacturing. He also said the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) is strengthening regulation through efforts to tackle falsified medicines. The briefing gave no enforcement, inspection, prosecution or product-approval figures with which to assess that work.

The government is also trying to operationalise Medipool, a group purchasing organisation (a purchasing body that combines buyers’ orders) expected to consolidate demand for medicines and other health commodities and improve government procurement. Its expected status remains prospective.

Pate said reliable demand and effective regulation are critical to local production, making pooled procurement and credible quality control commercial dependencies rather than peripheral administrative tasks.

How strong is the evidence for higher local supply?\n

Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare Iziaq Salako said the share of medicines produced locally increased from 30% in 2023 to 50% in 2026, a reported gain of 20 percentage points. He attributed the rise to reforms and investments in the health sector.

Salako also cited data from the Pharmaceutical Group of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria and NAFDAC showing an increase of about 10% in the number of active local pharmaceutical companies. The 20-percentage-point production-share gain compares with a roughly 10% company-count increase, but the measures use different denominators and cannot establish that every new company supplies the same products.

The briefing did not define whether “share of medicines produced locally” refers to volume, monetary value, product categories or some combination. It gave no underlying production totals, baseline company count, sampling method or reporting period for the active-company data. The figures also arrived through ministerial statements rather than a published dataset, so researchers and investors should treat them as reported indicators pending methodological detail.

Salako placed the manufacturing expansion within the Federal Government’s broader health-sector renewal agenda. Its stated aims include strengthening the healthcare value chain, improving access to essential medical products and building resilience in Nigeria’s health system.

The next proof points are whether the 12 transfers generate routine output, Medipool turns pooled demand into paid orders and stronger regulation lets the 10 commissioned units supply medicines and other products at scale.