Pharma companies entering African markets frequently rely on commercial models borrowed from other emerging markets — Latin America, South-East Asia, Eastern Europe — and are surprised when they underperform. Sub-Saharan and North African markets require purpose-built GTM architectures that account for channel fragmentation, regulatory heterogeneity, and informal distribution dynamics that simply do not exist elsewhere.
The assumption that an emerging-markets playbook travels is one of the most expensive mistakes a multinational can make when entering Africa. The continent’s 54 markets differ not just in size and income, but in the very structure of how medicines move from manufacturer to patient — the channel architectures, the role of informal trade, the weight of hospital versus retail, the influence of public procurement.
A GTM model built for Brazil will not survive contact with the Nigerian distribution landscape. A pricing architecture designed for Thailand will not navigate Egypt’s reimbursement environment. Africa demands original thinking — grounded in how these markets actually work, not in how global templates assume they should.
Full article coming soon.