A drug manufactured in Lebanon is not always cheaper than an imported product. The official list of public prices updated on 19 October 2026 shows differences in both directions. Three comparisons, covering paracetamol, l-atorvastatin and metformin, allow us to measure these differences without confusing the price of the box, the industrial origin and the sum ultimately borne by the patient.
The campaign to support the Lebanese pharmaceutical industry, launched on 5 November at the Beirut National Museum, puts local production at the centre of the debate. For a household, however, the question arises before a specific order. The country of manufacture is not sufficient to provide for the cost of pharmacy.
The figures below are from the Department of Health tariff consulted on November 6. Substances, dosages and forms have been reconciled with the national drug inventory. These are public administrative prizes, not cash tickets collected in the offices. The presence of a product in this list does not demonstrate that it is available everywhere.
Compare identified presentations
The first precaution is to check the dosage, form and number of units. Two boxes bearing the same substance name do not necessarily constitute a relevant comparison. An extended release submission should not be confused with an ordinary submission. One tablet and one solution for injection do not respond to the same use.
Examples include oral tablets. The price of each box is rounded to the nearest pound. When packaging differs, the calculation per tablet is used only to compare an identical quantity. It is neither a dose recommendation nor an invitation to buy more.
This survey does not establish a therapeutic ranking. The choice of a medicine, its substitution and adaptation of a treatment should be checked with the doctor or pharmacist. A price differential alone does not demonstrate a difference in quality or clinical equivalence for each patient.
Paracetamol: packaging changes reading
For paracetamol 500 mg, the reference Pharmadex manufactured in Lebanon, ministerial code 4617, is 66,552 pounds per 20 tablets. The Doliprane reference made in France by Sanofi Winthrop Industrie, code 7434, appears at 120 946 pounds for 16 tablets.
Returned to the unit, the amounts represent approximately 3,328 pounds and 7,559 pounds per tablet. In this precise approximation, the unit price of the Lebanese reference is about 56% lower. Compare only the two box prices would have masked the fact that the cheapest also contains more tablets.
This result does not apply to all drugs or to all paracetamol submissions. The directory includes other brands and packagings. References combining several substances are not included in this comparison.
Atorvastatin: a local product between two imported
For the 20 mg atatorvastatin, the three references examined each contain 30 tablets. Atorvastatin Pharmadex, manufactured in Lebanon and identified by code 8660, is entered at 769 190 pounds. Apo-Atorvastatin, made in Canada by Apotex, code 6093, is 1,416,410 pounds. Atorvakey-20, made in India by Emcury, code 11794, is 362,837 pounds.
The Lebanese reference cost approximately 46% less than the Canadian reference. But its price is higher than that of the Indian reference. The same local product may therefore be cheaper or more expensive depending on the imported medicine to which it is compared.
This case also highlights the importance of the columns in the directory. For Atorvakey-20, the manufacturer is based in India, while the person in charge of the product indicated in the database is a Spanish company. The country of the latter must not be presented as the country of manufacture.
Metformin: an international brand produced in Lebanon
Glucophagus 850 mg, a pack of 30 film-coated tablets, code 4699, is described as manufactured by Pharmaline in Lebanon under licence from Merck Santé, France. Its public price is £572,634. It would therefore be incorrect to classify this reference as imported goods solely because its mark is international.
Metformine Arrow Lab, 850 mg, pack of 30 film-coated tablets, code 9012, is entered at 237 860 pounds. For this reference, the manufacturer indicated is APL Swift Services in Malta. The amount is about £335,000 lower than the Glucophagus.
Again, this reconciliation involves specific references. The tariff also distinguishes from other dosages, boxes of 90 units and extended release presentations. Adding them into a single average price would erase essential differences to understand a prescription.
The refund is a second comparison
The public rate is not automatically chargeable. It is necessary to identify the drug actually delivered, the basis recognised by the cover body and the rights of the beneficiary. A refund rate, isolated from the product and tariff to which it applies, does not allow a reliable amount to be calculated.
CNSS publishes its own drug lists. To bring these lists closer to the departmental tariff, the product code, dosage and packaging are safer than the only trade name. A date difference between two files should also be reported. The prices of this statement are therefore not converted into promises of repayment.
Availability is another limitation. No stock checks at pharmacies were carried out for these references. The statement presented measures official tariff differences; it does not measure the cost of a travel to find a box or the cost of an interrupted treatment.
Before purchase, useful checks remain concrete: exact prescribed reference, quantity, manufacturer, current price, possibility of validated substitution and coverage of the delivered product. The three examples show why the only division between « local » and « imported » is not enough to answer these questions.
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