The department of trade, industry & competition has launched a master plan for the medical technology sector in a bid to reduce SA’s reliance on imports and improve the country’s security of supply.
The risks associated with SA’s limited manufacturing capacity for medical devices were sharply exposed during the Covid-19 pandemic, when authorities scrambled to secure products ranging from personal protective equipment to diagnostic tests. About 90% of the medical devices used in SA are imported.
“With the right co-ordination, there is significant innovation capacity that we can harness,” said minister of trade, industry & competition Ebrahim Patel, citing SA’s production of hand sanitisers, medical grade masks and CPAP machines as the pandemic progressed.
There were growth opportunities in SA and beyond, thanks to the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), he said. Harmonising regional regulatory requirements would be an important component of increasing medical device sales to other African countries, he said in an interview with Business Day.
“We will help them open markets, like the AfCFTA. Now we need to work to harmonise standards to make it easier for countries to sell a single product in multiple markets,” he said.
The African continent was a significant importer of medical technologies, with much of the demand lying with goods that were within the scope of SA producers, he said.
The MedTech master plan is the eighth master plan drawn up by the department of trade, industry & competition. Previous plans include the sugar, automotive, poultry and retail-clothing textile, footwear leather and furniture sectors. SA’s MedTech sector is now valued at R21bn, with more than R4bn in exports, according to the department.
“In the old paradigm, industry lobbied government for measures such as preferential procurement, tax (breaks) and incentives. That depends on government dispensing largesse. The (MedTech) plan requires industries to develop competitiveness, accompanied by the support government can provide,” Patel said.
The plan recommends focusing on medical products that are deemed low risk, such as bandages and tongue depressors, or low-moderate risk such as powered wheelchairs, as these are easier to develop and could compete effectively with imports.
It aims to increase the number of people employed in the medical technology sector by at least 1,000 jobs over the next three to five years by localising the production of R1bn worth of goods that are now imported.
The master plan will be implemented over a five-year period under the stewardship of a MedTech executive oversight committee that has yet to be established and aims to reduce the trade deficit by 5% over the period.
The plan says locally manufactured products that could be considered for preferential procurement should be identified, for sale to both public and private institutions. The Public Procurement Bill would help support local firms, he said.
Parliament is expected to finalise its work on the bill later this week, which will then be sent to the president for assent.
Medical Device Manufacturers of SA chair Simone Shortt welcomed the launch of the plan, saying a collaborative approach was required to build the local medical device manufacturing industry, which had a diverse array of customers ranging from retail pharmacies to intensive care units in hospitals.
“We need stakeholder involvement to determine which (products) to target. Local production creates jobs — it is not just the manufacturing of the device, but also the packaging and component suppliers that create jobs,” she said.
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