Introduction to SEPHIRE: A Key Player in Tunisia's Healthcare System
In a context where Tunisia's healthcare sector is facing significant challenges, Mr. Zied Belghith, President of SEPHIRE (the Tunisian Syndicate of Innovative Pharmaceutical Enterprises and Research), discusses the organization's role in accessing innovative medicines, supporting healthcare system reforms, and providing concrete solutions to ensure the long-term care of Tunisian patients.
Presentation of SEPHIRE
SEPHIRE is a Tunisian organization created in 2012, composed of Tunisian companies and firmly rooted in the national health ecosystem. It currently brings together 19 innovative pharmaceutical and research companies committed to accessing innovation and improving the long-term care of Tunisian patients. Our members operate in Tunisia, invest, create qualified jobs, and share the same daily concerns as patients, healthcare professionals, and public authorities.
Since its creation, SEPHIRE has worked to ensure patient access to innovative medicines, encourage technology transfer, and contribute to the strengthening of the Tunisian pharmaceutical sector through sustainable partnerships with the state and local industry. This commitment is part of a logic of creating sustainable economic and social value, with a clear ambition: to strengthen Tunisia's position as a regional hub for pharmaceutical innovation.
More than a union, SEPHIRE is today a responsible actor in the healthcare system, fully aware of the country's economic, social, and human realities. SEPHIRE is a bearer of solutions and a force for proposals, with a constant will to contribute to the dialogue, always centered on the Tunisian patient and their constitutional right to access healthcare.
Addressing the Challenges Facing the Healthcare Sector
SEPHIRE is a resilient actor that prioritizes the superior interest of the Tunisian patient above all other considerations to overcome the obstacles encountered. For several years, SEPHIRE's members have shown unprecedented resilience to preserve Tunisian patients' access to medicines, particularly in the face of the financial difficulties of the Central Pharmacy of Tunisia, which have generated payment delays exceeding the fiscal year. We reaffirm our attachment to the perpetuity of the Central Pharmacy of Tunisia, a national achievement and a pillar of the Tunisian healthcare system.
Furthermore, SEPHIRE proposes concrete and realistic solutions, based on fine expertise of the terrain and regulatory, economic, and social constraints. Among the paths mentioned are the regulatory trust procedure, innovative contracts, or alternative health financing, all of which represent levers that can durably improve the functioning of the system.
The Patient at the Heart of SEPHIRE's Priorities
The Tunisian patient is SEPHIRE's absolute priority and the finality of all its missions. Improving patient survival and quality of life is a central axis of our commitment. This improvement necessarily involves permanent access to innovative technologies, which allow care systems to optimize invested resources while reducing other healthcare expenses in the long term.
It is also essential to emphasize that for us, accelerating the inclusion of innovative medicines in the basic health insurance regime is crucial. It ensures equity of access among all Tunisian patients and allows the state to benefit from more advantageous acquisition conditions. Among the measures to be considered are the resumption of the works of the commission for revising the basic regime, governed by the joint decree of April 13, 2007, the acceleration of the implementation of innovative contracts, and the encouragement of alternative financing initiatives.
SEPHIRE's Role in Healthcare Reforms
SEPHIRE welcomes the federative momentum initiated by President Kaïs Saïed and the mobilization of all healthcare sector actors. We also welcome the political will expressed by the President of the Republic, the Minister of Health, and the Minister of Social Affairs to restructure social coverage to ensure universal health coverage, a sustainable development goal to which Tunisia has committed.
The success of the reforms relies on the mobilization of all national expertise. SEPHIRE wishes to be fully associated with the discussions and reforms as a credible Tunisian partner and actor, with a structured and immediately mobilizable collective expertise. The Tunisian patient, their constitutional right to access healthcare, and the general interest must remain at the heart of all decisions, within the framework of a fundamental, durable, and inclusive reform of the healthcare system.
