As a way of enhancing the value chain in the pharmaceutical industry, the Tobinco group of Companies has set up the Entrance University Of Health Sciences to shape and expand pharmacy practice and training.
The university, established and accredited in 2018, seeks to train pharmacists and clinicians first and provide adequate and effective training.
It received a presidential charter in 2024, making it autonomous to issue it’s own certificates and offer its own programmes in line with its stakeholder agencies like Pharmacy Council, medical and Dental Council, Nursing and Midwifery Council, under the Ministry of Health.
Its Doctor of Pharmacy programme emphasizes patient-centred care and curriculum that combines academic study with laboratory work and real clinical exposure.
It is the first private institution in West Africa accredited to offer the degree.
The early move helped widen the pipeline of PharmD graduates just as the PharmD became set to replace Bachelor of Pharmacy programme as the minimum qualification for licensure in Ghana.
beyond clinical skills, the University sets out to give out ethical and entrepreneurial grounding in a Christian setting.
The managing Director of Tobinco Pharmaceuticals Limited, Dr Christopher mensah, said that preparation matters for the many pharmacists who will own or manage community pharmacies. It’s campus sits besides Entrance Pharmaceuticals & Research Centre, which gives students close exposure to local manufacturing and research, in line with Ghana’s push for domestic drug production. With medicine, nursing and dentistry now alongside pharmacy, students can learn in the team-based model where pharmacists work as full clinical partners.
He said, the schools engagement with plant medicine research also points towards pharmacists who can bring scientific rigour to herbal therapies.
On innovation, he indicated that Tobinco continues to input innovation into its company structure, saying, “We market, we distibute, and through our sister company Entrance Pharmaceuticals and Reserach Centre, we manufacture. That integration wasn’t an afterthought; it’s how the company grew.”
He said manufacturing capacity through Entrance Pharmaceuticals also cuts reliance on imports, which means steadiest access to essential medicines for Ghana through its 17 regional offices and a distribution fleet built to reach every part of the country.
Industry Collaboration
On industry engagements, Dr Mensah has stated that the path forward towards impact and satisfactory services is collaboration on standards, shared investments in local manufacturing and adopting digital transformation as a competitive necessity.
“The companies that adapt now will shape the sector’s next decade, and Tobinco intends to be one of them,” he stated.
He reiterated that quality and access remain the priority that trust is not taken lightly in efforts towards improving consumer satisfaction.
He stated that while technology will touch nearly every part of the pharmaceutical business, none of these replaces the fundamentals of trust, access and reliability.
He said technological advancements were likely to impact distribution toward route optimisation, real-tim stock visibility and digital ordering for pharmacies while manufacturing would see greater automation, tighter quality control and predictive maintenance on production lines.
On the commercial side, he said dashboard-driven field force management, demand forecasting and digital point-of-sale systems will give real time visibility into what’s selling and where, saying consumers expect more telepharmacy, medication reminders and e-commerce for OTC products.
Touching on financing, Dr Mensah said it had been a challenge, stressing that cedi volatility, high import costs for active pharmaceutical ingredients, tight working capital and limited access to foreign exchange for raw materials all put pressure on how sector players planned and budgeted.
He said distributors such as Tobinco often extend credit to smaller pharmacies and retailers who couldn’t otherwise stock properly, an informal but real part of how the sector keeps moving. In the longer term, he said the sector needs financing instruments built for its realities not just short-term trade credit.
On the future of pharmacy, he said pharmacy was moving past pure distribution toward integrated healthcare including diagnostics-linked dispensing, adherence support, digital ordering for pharmacies and OTC outlets.
“That’s where the industry is headed, and Tobinco is positioning for it deliberately rather than reactively,” he stated