Opening Pharmacy Capital in Morocco

By the Editorial Team of Vitavox Institute

Morocco’s pharmacy business model is now at a turning point. Long protected by a strict practice monopoly, the retail pharmaceutical distribution sector is facing a major structural reform: opening pharmacy capital to non-pharmacists. Beyond the financial question, the identity of the profession, health-market regulation and access to care are all at stake.

Context: The Leverage Effect of AMO

Why has a subject that had been dormant since 2009 resurfaced so forcefully in 2025-2026? The answer comes down to three letters: AMO (Mandatory Health Insurance).

• Massive solvency effect: In 2024, CNSS reimbursements for medicines jumped by 170% over five years, reaching MAD 3.8 billion.
• Pressure on margins: At the same time, the Ministry of Health reduced the prices of more than 200 medicines in 2025 to preserve the balance of the funds.
• Institutional transformation: The creation of the AMMPS (Moroccan Agency for Medicines and Health Products) reflects the State’s intention to professionalize and regulate a market now worth more than MAD 13.5 billion.

Unsustainable Economic Pressure

The debate over opening pharmacy capital has returned with unprecedented intensity, driven by a critical economic situation for the profession. The traditional neighborhood-pharmacy model is going through a profitability crisis.

Urban saturation is intensifying. Morocco now has more than 12,000 community pharmacies, with very uneven density. At the same time, the cost of opening a pharmacy has soared, making ownership almost inaccessible for young graduates. According to sector data, the average installation cost ranges between MAD 1.5 million and MAD 2 million, a burden that is suffocating new generations. In addition, the reform of CNOPS and lower margins on reimbursable medicines have reduced pharmacy profitability, pushing the sector to look for new growth levers.

A Century-Old Legal Framework

Historically, pharmacy in Morocco has been governed by the Dahir of 11 April 1960 and Law No. 17-04 establishing the medicines and pharmacy code. The cardinal principle is that of pharmaceutical exclusivity: to own a pharmacy, one must be a pharmacist.

This legislative framework was intended to protect public health by ensuring that medicine distribution remained in the hands of professionals bound by strict ethics and shielded from purely commercial logic. However, the system has led to a fragmented sector, with many small independent pharmacies, and has slowed infrastructure modernization because of limited access to capital.

The Decision and Regulatory Turning Point

To respond to these challenges, the Ministry of Health and Social Protection initiated the revision of Law 17-04. The bill, discussed in Parliament in late 2023 and early 2024, explicitly provides for legal entities, meaning companies, to hold pharmacy capital, with possible opening to non-pharmacists.

The stated objective is to allow fresh capital to modernize pharmacies, encourage group structures and facilitate establishment in underserved rural areas, where an individual investor does not go because immediate profitability is lacking.

The Competition Council Opinion: The Catalyst

The major trigger for this reform is the intervention of the economic regulator. In a high-profile opinion made public, the Competition Council officially advocated opening pharmacy capital.

In its 2023 public opinion, the Council stressed that prohibiting non-pharmacists from holding shares in pharmacies constituted an obstacle to freedom of enterprise and competition. The regulator argued that this barrier to entry limited investment and modernization in the sector. It recommended separating capital ownership from the practice of the profession: non-pharmacists could be shareholders, but technical management and responsibility would remain the exclusive preserve of the licensed pharmacist. This intervention gave supporters of the reform a solid legal and economic foundation.

Current Developments: Professional Anger and Pushback

This prospect sent shockwaves through the profession. Recent developments have been marked by strong mobilization from unions and the Order of Pharmacists.

• The Order’s position: The National Order of Pharmacists has issued multiple statements warning of the risk of turning medicine into a commodity. The institution fears that purely financial investors could transform pharmacies into businesses like any other, to the detriment of pharmaceutical advice.
• Union mobilization: In response to the bill, several strike calls were launched by unions such as the SNPO (National Union of Community Pharmacists). In early 2024, protest movements were observed to denounce a reform considered too liberal.
• The institutional response: Faced with the backlash, the Ministry of Health reaffirmed its willingness to engage in dialogue while staying the course. The Minister recently confirmed during a parliamentary session that the reform was essential to save a sector in financial distress, promising strict safeguards, including caps on non-pharmacist shareholdings and validation of company statutes by the Order.

The Clash of Arguments

What Supporters Say

Drawing on the Competition Council’s opinion, supporters of opening capital defend a modernizing vision:

1. Access to ownership: External capital is the only solution for young pharmacists who cannot shoulder the debt of buying a pharmacy alone.
2. Economies of scale: Creating corporate structures would make it possible to pool costs, including logistics and IT, which is vital in the face of shrinking margins.
3. Rural reach: A capital-backed model could make investment possible in underserved areas, where an isolated pharmacist cannot survive economically.

What Opponents Say

The Order of Pharmacists and unions raise the specter of a loss of professional sovereignty:

1. Conflict of interest: A non-pharmacist shareholder seeking maximum profit could exert pressure to increase sales of high-margin products, such as parapharmacy items, at the expense of medicines with therapeutic value.
2. Market concentration: They fear the emergence of pharmacy chains owned by financial holdings, condemning independent pharmacies and standardizing the service provided.
3. Health risk: For opponents, the pharmacist must remain in full control. The intrusion of financial-return logic is seen as incompatible with medical ethics.

Conclusion

For Vitavox Institute, the outcome of this conflict will shape the face of local healthcare in Morocco for decades to come. While the Competition Council’s opinion gave economic legitimacy to opening capital, the pharmacists’ social pushback is a reminder that medicine is not an ordinary commodity. The success of this reform will not lie in opening capital itself, but in the legislator’s ability to establish an inalienable “pharmaceutical authority,” ensuring that capital serves health, and not the reverse.