Nigeria’s shift from a voluntary health insurance scheme to a mandatory national system under the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) Act represents one of the most consequential transformations in the country’s healthcare financing landscape. For decades, the pharmaceutical market has been dominated by an out-of-pocket (OOP) payment structure, where individual patients bore the financial burden of accessing medicines. This created a fragmented, price-sensitive market with unpredictable demand, limited treatment adherence, and significant barriers to scale.
The NHIA reforms fundamentally alter this equation. This is far more than a policy update; it marks a structural transition from an OOP-dependent market to an insurance-driven healthcare economy, reshaping how medicines are financed, purchased, priced, and accessed across the country.