On 5 November, Nehmat Aoun called for a fair chance for Lebanese medicines in public procurement. But this call does not create a new national preference. Lebanese law already provides for one, and a Health specification published in July 2026 specifically refers to a 10% benefit for Lebanese products.
The First Lady spoke at the Beirut National Museum when the campaign to support the local pharmaceutical industry was launched. She defended access to public orders by qualified manufacturers without compromising patient safety. It remains to be distinguished from the existing rules and their application in each market.
What the law provides
Article 16 of Law 244 on public procurement allows a 10% preference to be given to offers involving goods or services of national origin. The profit concerns the national components of supply and depends on the rules of origin. It is therefore not sufficient for a distributor to be a Lebanese company to qualify all the medicines that it sells as local production.
The same article prohibits the inclusion in tender or prequalification files of provisions which would exclude goods manufactured in Lebanon where they exist and their quality meets the requirements. Protection of market access thus remains linked to technical compliance.
The law does not automatically award a contract to the domestic producer. It provides a framework for comparing eligible offers. Origin, price and compliance with specifications must be established, not assumed from the company’s name.
A clause already present in a drug market
A verifiable example is the Health Market with reference 36/ش.ع.ю, announced on 10 July 2026 on the Public Procurement Authority platform. It concerns several medicinal products, with tenders submitted by reference or group of references. The deadline for submission was 3 August: it is not a new call opened after the November speech.
On page 2, Article 3 of the specification provides for the award of tenders accepted on administrative and technical grounds. It also specifies the procedure to be followed when prices remain equal after the application of the 10 per cent preference for Lebanese property, referring to article 16 of the Act.
This indicates that the mechanism is provided for in the contract document consulted. It does not make it possible to calculate how many lots a Lebanese factory has won thanks to it. A clause and an award result are two different proofs.
Quality does not become optional
Article 5 of the same book requires medicines registered and classified with the Ministry of Health, in accordance with the characteristics, standards and conditions which it establishes. It provides that the administration may request further documentation or analysis in case of doubt and refuse a non-compliant good.
The dossier also requires the identification of the drug, its registration number and its trade name. These data are used to link an offer to a specific product. The comparison should not oppose one abstract category of « local drugs » to another of « imported drugs » without verifying substance, presentation, dosage and applicable requirements.
In order to assess the real place of Lebanese production, applications, admissibility decisions, prices compared after preference, manufacturers and countries of manufacture should be reconciled by batch. Contracts and deliveries would then make it possible to distinguish between an allocation of an actual supply.
The issue is enforcement
The documents reviewed do not allow for a consolidated national share of drug purchases or demonstrate a systematic exclusion from local plants. They show, however, that the discussion must go beyond the mere announcement of support: a legal instrument and a market clause already exist.
The test will be traceable, with identical quality and safety requirements. Supporting local production and protecting the patient are not two competing objectives, provided that sufficient elements are published to verify how offers are evaluated and drugs delivered.
Photo illustration: tablets and capsules, Libnanews photo bank. Unidentified products, place and photographer; this image does not represent the lots of the market studied.
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