Pharmaceutical Distribution in Morocco
Analysis of pharmaceutical distribution in Morocco, covering pharmacy economic pressures, Competition Council recommendations, draft Law 27-26, generic substitution, digitalization and remuneration reform.
5,000 pharmacists gathered in Rabat in April 2026 to oppose the Competition Council’s recommendations, but Law 17-04, which governs pharmaceutical distribution in Morocco, has still not been replaced. Twenty years after its adoption, the sector is waiting for the structural overhaul that all stakeholders say they want.
70% of Pharmacies Report Turnover Below MAD 1.2 Million
The distribution chain relies on 14,134 pharmacies, 66 wholesale distributors and 56 industrial pharmaceutical establishments operating within a legal framework designed for another era. The removal of the 7% VAT in January 2024 sums up the model’s contradictions on its own: good news for patients, but added pressure on a chain already under strain.
Wholesale distributors, required to serve more than 13,000 sales points with high fixed logistics costs, have absorbed price compression and margin erosion at the same time. The sector’s operating expenses rose by 36% between 2020 and 2024, without real compensation through regulated margins. Their growing concentration reflects a market tightening around its strongest operators.
On the pharmacy side, the reality behind the figures is striking: 70% of pharmacies report turnover below MAD 1.2 million, while only 10% exceed MAD 2.5 million. National pharmacy density, twice the WHO recommendation, masks a deep territorial divide between saturated urban areas and rural pharmacy deserts.
The Generalization of AMO: A Positive Dynamic With Contrasting Effects
AMO now covers more than 86% of Morocco’s population, representing a real opportunity to make demand solvent. But out-of-pocket costs of 30% to 38% continue to weigh on patients, and reimbursement delays weigh on pharmacy cash flow. Meanwhile, some private clinics dispense medicines outside the regulated channel, and informal online platforms weaken traceability across the whole chain.
The Competition Council Publishes Opinion A/6/25 With Twenty Structural Recommendations
In December 2025, the Competition Council published Opinion A/6/25 with twenty structural recommendations: reforming the pharmacists’ remuneration model, introducing the right to generic substitution, regulating payment terms between manufacturers and wholesalers, setting new rules for pharmacy location, digitalizing the chain and opening pharmacy capital under supervision.
The agenda is coherent, documented and supported by international comparisons covering ten countries. The problem is not the diagnosis, which is unanimously shared. The problem is that each recommendation directly challenges an established interest.
The CSPM Position: Agreement in Principle but Opposition to the Method
The Confederation of Pharmacists’ Unions of Morocco recognizes the reality of the sector’s economic tensions. What it contests is the method. Opening pharmacy capital to non-professional investors crystallizes all the tensions: for the profession, this measure could accelerate economic concentration and pharmaceutical desertification in already fragile rural areas.
The April 2026 gathering expresses one central demand: that the government take an official position before the Competition Council’s recommendations become the de facto roadmap.
Preliminary Draft Law 27-26: Nine Problems Addressed, Eleven Still Pending
Against this backdrop, the Ministry of Health is responding with preliminary draft Law 27-26. The text addresses nine of the twenty problems: mandatory safety stock for exporting manufacturers, creation of a National Pharmacovigilance System, strengthened post-marketing surveillance, inclusion of private clinics within the AMMPS inspection perimeter, and financial penalties for supply disruptions.
The eleven remaining structural problems, including pharmacists’ remuneration, generic substitution, payment terms, pharmacy location, digitalization and capital opening, are not addressed in this text. Each of these points mobilizes actors with divergent interests, making legislative treatment particularly complex.
The Tunisian Context: Points of Comparison
Tunisia’s pharmaceutical sector has structural characteristics close to those of Morocco. The Directorate of Pharmacy and Medicines documents a distribution model organized around a central public operator, the Central Pharmacy of Tunisia, and a network of private wholesale distributors whose development has never been regulated by a numerus clausus. In March 2026, the Tunisian government announced an emergency plan in response to recurring supply shortages, including digitalization of the distribution chain and creation of a strategic stock. The same period saw a diagnosis of widespread structural fragility: relocation by multinationals, dependence on imports and insufficient local production.
The French and Turkish Models: Two Reform Paths and Their Lessons
France introduced the right to generic substitution as early as 1999, alongside remuneration for pharmaceutical acts disconnected from the price of the medicine. The equation was clear: the savings generated by substitution finance the revaluation of the pharmacist’s role as a public-health actor. Generics now account for 30% of boxes sold in France, compared with one box in twenty in 2000. Twenty-five years later, the model remains in force.
Turkey chose the full digitalization of its pharmaceutical chain through a mandatory electronic traceability system, allowing each medicine box to be tracked in real time, combined with strict margin regulation and consolidation of the wholesale network. It was a large-scale project whose results permanently transformed the country’s health sovereignty.
These two paths converge on the same observation: the deepest reforms succeed when they clearly define who gains what, and who is compensated during the transition.
The Conditions for Structural Reform in Morocco
Morocco has a diagnosis shared by all stakeholders and documented international models. The conditions for structural reform depend less on the technical diagnosis than on the ability to address both consensual technical reforms and more complex structural reforms at the same time, while building compensation mechanisms that make the latter acceptable.
This notably means introducing a mixed remuneration model for pharmacists, with a fixed component per act and a variable component linked to price, financed by a share of the savings generated by generic substitution. It means launching a national program to digitalize the chain with integration into AMO systems. It means regulating payment terms between manufacturers and wholesalers by regulation, with 81 days upstream and 97 days downstream. It means creating a sector guarantee fund to support the restructuring of fragile pharmacies in rural areas. And it means opening a structured dialogue on capital opening limited to pharmacist groups, to enable economies of scale without changing the professional nature of the pharmacy network.
Preliminary draft Law 27-26 is a first step. Without a credible reform timetable and without agreement among the parties, namely the Competition Council, unions and the ministry, the structural problems identified by Opinion A/6/25 will continue waiting for legislative treatment.