How technology could help African pharmacies fight counterfeit medicines

A patient should never have to wonder whether the medicine in a pharmacy is genuine. Yet across Africa, that uncertainty remains a serious public-health threat.

The World Health Organisation estimates that at least one in 10 medicines in low- and middle-income countries is substandard or falsified, while these products cost such countries about $30.5 billion annually. Africa carries a disproportionate share of the problem: between 2013 and 2017, 42 per cent of the 1,500 reports of substandard and falsified medical products received by WHO came from the African Region.

The consequences can be deadly. Poor-quality medicines can contain the wrong ingredients, too little active ingredient or no effective ingredient at all. They can cause treatment failure, prolong illness and contribute to drug resistance. WHO estimates that poor-quality antimalarials may contribute to 31,000 to 116,000 deaths from malaria annually in sub-Saharan Africa.

These numbers should force us to ask a more urgent question: how do we make it significantly harder for counterfeit and falsified medicines to reach African pharmacies and, ultimately, patients?

Regulation and enforcement are essential, but they cannot carry the burden alone. We also need to strengthen the supply chain itself. Technology can help us do that.

The first opportunity is pharmaceutical sourcing. A pharmacy should be able to establish, before placing an order, who manufactured a medicine, who is authorised to distribute it and whether the product is properly registered. Yet long and fragmented supply chains create opportunities for products to enter through weak links.

Digital procurement platforms can reduce that risk by creating a more controlled connection between pharmacies and verified manufacturers and distributors. Instead of relying entirely on informal networks or individual relationships, pharmacies can source through systems where supplier credentials, product information and transaction records are digitally captured.

This is particularly important outside major cities.

A pharmacy in Lagos, Nairobi or Accra may have access to a wider network of suppliers than a pharmacy serving a smaller town. Distance, fragmented distribution networks and inconsistent availability can make procurement more difficult for pharmacies in underserved communities. When legitimate medicines are difficult to obtain or become too expensive, unreliable products can find an opening.

This makes inventory management another important part of the solution. A pharmacy should know what it has, where it came from, how quickly it is moving and when it needs to replenish its stock. Digital inventory systems can create a traceable record from procurement to sale, helping pharmacies monitor product movement and isolate affected batches when a regulatory alert or recall is issued.

Nigeria has seen why such systems matter. NAFDAC has issued multiple alerts on counterfeit and substandard medicines, including products carrying falsified registration numbers. In one 2024 alert, the agency warned about an injection whose stated NAFDAC registration number did not exist in its database.

But technology alone will not solve the problem if pharmacies cannot afford to buy legitimate medicines.

One reason a pharmacy may turn to an unknown supplier is not necessarily ignorance. It may be price, availability or cash-flow pressure. A pharmacist who must choose between paying for inventory today and keeping the business operating tomorrow is vulnerable to cheaper but less reliable supply channels.

Digital financing can help address this gap by giving qualifying pharmacies access to working capital tied to verified inventory purchases. Instead of making the cheapest supplier the easiest option, the system can make legitimate procurement more financially accessible.

The same principle applies to logistics. A verified medicine is of little use if it cannot reach the pharmacy efficiently. Digital platforms can connect procurement with delivery, provide visibility into orders and create transaction records that make it easier to trace where products have moved.

This is where the African pharmaceutical supply chain needs to move: from fragmented transactions to connected infrastructure. No single technology will eliminate counterfeit medicines. Regulation, enforcement, border controls, public awareness, stronger local manufacturing and international cooperation will remain essential. But technology can make every part of the legitimate supply chain more visible and accountable.

The opportunity is to build a system in which pharmacies can identify verified suppliers, procure medicines digitally, finance legitimate purchases, manage inventory and track deliveries from source to shelf.

For the pharmacist outside a major city, that could mean access to the same verified supply network available to a pharmacy in a major commercial centre. For regulators, it could mean better visibility into how medicines move through the market. For manufacturers and distributors, it could mean stronger traceability.

And for patients, it could mean greater confidence that the medicine they are buying is what it claims to be. Africa does not need to choose between regulation and technology. It needs both.

The counterfeit-medicine problem is ultimately a supply-chain problem as much as it is a regulatory one. If we want to make it harder for falsified medicines to reach patients, we must make the legitimate supply chain easier to access, easier to verify and easier to trace.

The future of medicine safety in Africa may therefore depend not only on what happens inside the laboratory or regulatory office, but also on what happens between the manufacturer and the pharmacy. That is where technology can make a difference.

Samuel Okwuada is a pharmacist, software developer and entrepreneur, and founder of Remedial Health, a Y Combinator-backed health-tech company building digital infrastructure for Africa’s pharmaceutical supply chain.