Nairobi - Kenya has launched the Kenya Health Products and Technologies Local Manufacturing Strategy 2026–2030, a five-year roadmap to expand local production of medicines, vaccines, diagnostics and medical devices, and to strengthen the regulatory systems that keep them safe, effective and of assured quality.
Dr Ouma Oluga, Principal Secretary for Medical Services, officially launched the strategy on 23 June 2026, alongside government, industry and development partners.
The launch lands at a moment when President William Ruto, in his capacity as African Union Champion for Local Manufacturing, has been pressing the continent to build its own capacity to make the medicines it needs. "It sits at the heart of Africa's health security and sovereignty agenda," he said of local manufacturing, speaking at a Kenya-hosted side event during the African Union Assembly in Addis Ababa in February 2026.
Kenya starts that effort from a stronger position than the numbers on imports alone would suggest. It is already the third-largest exporter of pharmaceutical products in Africa and the largest supplier within the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), holding close to half that regional market. More than 37 licensed manufacturers produce 694 medicine formulations, from bulk paracetamol to other essential generics, shipping to Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Somalia as well as serving Kenyans at home. Exports climbed from Sh12.2 billion in 2022 to Sh19.9 billion in 2024, a 63% rise in two years, and Universal Corporation Limited became the first company in Africa to win WHO prequalification for a lifesaving antimalarial.
What the strategy is built to fix is the gap behind those numbers. Kenya still imports an estimated 70 to 80% of the pharmaceuticals it consumes, a reliance that left the country exposed when COVID-19 and the Mpox outbreaks disrupted global supply chains. The country's health products market is worth approximately USD 1.2 billion a year, and more than USD 760 million of that is spent on imports. Locally, manufacturers produce only around 20% of the medicines on Kenya's Essential Medicines List. They also use less than half of their installed production capacity. Better utilisation alone could close much of that gap.
That is where the new strategy aims first: lifting utilisation of existing manufacturing capacity by 70% by 2030, helping manufacturers reach internationally recognised Good Manufacturing Practice standards, and introducing multi-year procurement commitments to solve a problem manufacturers have raised for years, that it is often more profitable to export than to supply Kenya's own public health system.
Vaccines are a parallel front. In February 2026, Kenya joined the WHO-Medicines Patent Pool mRNA Technology Transfer Programme, through which the Kenya BioVax Institute is building local capacity to manufacture vaccines against COVID-19, malaria, tuberculosis and other outbreak-prone diseases.
None of this works without regulation that keeps pace, said Dr Neema Rusibamayila Kimambo, WHO Representative a.i. to Kenya. "As Kenya expands local manufacturing, quality must remain at the centre of every step of the journey. The success of this Strategy will depend not only on increasing production, but also on ensuring that health products consistently meet the highest standards of quality, safety and efficacy. Expanding production capacity and strengthening regulatory systems must go hand in hand."
To that end, Kenya has begun developing a National Action Plan on Substandard and Falsified Medical Products. On 1 July 2026, the Ministry of Health convened the plan's first Interministerial Steering Committee, bringing together regulators, law enforcement agencies and development partners to coordinate a national response. WHO estimates that roughly one in every ten medical products in low- and middle-income countries is substandard or falsified, undermining patient safety and eroding trust in health systems.
The strategy also commits Kenya to strengthening the Pharmacy and Poisons Board toward WHO Maturity Level 3, an internationally recognised regulatory benchmark that would give locally manufactured medicines greater credibility at home and across the region.
WHO has supported development of both the strategy and the action plan, providing technical guidance on regulatory strengthening, quality assurance and implementation, including through engagement with pharmacists, regulators and manufacturers at the 46th Annual Pharmaceutical Society of Kenya Scientific Conference in Mombasa.
For Dr Neema Kimambo, however, the strategy's success will ultimately be measured not by its launch, but by its impact on people's lives. "The true value of this Strategy will not be measured by the document we launch today. It will be measured by the factories that expand production, the jobs that are created, the medicines that become more accessible, the health systems that become more resilient, and, ultimately, the lives that are improved."