In late August, the Jordanian-Saudi Business Council proposed developing a joint economic action programme and called for the development of shared supply chains across food, pharmaceuticals and logistics services. It also proposed a joint system to strengthen supply-chain security and resilience through information sharing, early warning, alternative routes and logistical coordination.

 

The proposal comes at a time when developments linked to the Strait of Hormuz are once again highlighting the sensitivity of trade and supply routes. The region has also experienced disruptions in the Red Sea and Bab Al Mandab in recent years.

 

Including pharmaceuticals among the supply chains covered by the proposal raises a broader question: what can the regional dimension add to pharmaceutical security? Pharmaceutical security remains fundamentally a national responsibility, encompassing medicine stocks, regulation, manufacturing and preparedness.

 

Yet some functions may be more effective when countries operate within a broader network that complements national capabilities rather than replacing them.

 

Take the monitoring of medicine shortages, for example. Sharing data on supply, demand and availability across several markets can provide an early indication that a problem is not merely local and temporary, but the start of broader pressure on a product, supplier or route. Joint procurement offers another example: pooling demand for selected products can give countries greater bargaining power when their needs can genuinely be combined.

 

Jointly held medicine stocks can likewise provide an additional reserve when one country or a group of countries is able to support another in time of need.

 

These mechanisms are only the first layer of what regional cooperation can offer. Looking across several countries can reveal capabilities and gaps that are less visible when each country plans within its own borders.

 

Understanding those capabilities does not mean compiling a list of factories. It means knowing which production lines can be expanded, which can be repurposed when needed, what inputs they depend on, and where gaps, dependencies and concentrations lie.

 

But identifying capabilities and gaps is not enough. Disruption simulations can then show what would remain operational if a dependency within the supply and production network were disrupted. A scenario might assume that a major source of an active pharmaceutical ingredient becomes unavailable, a key plant goes offline, or a port or corridor is disrupted, and then test what remains operational. The exercise may reveal that a factory in a neighbouring country cannot cover the shortfall because it relies on the same disrupted input; that apparently different suppliers ultimately depend on the same source; or that seemingly alternative routes pass through the same bottleneck. Simulation may also show that several countries rely on the same stock or reserve capacity — and may need it at the same time.

 

Another form of regional cooperation is to develop production of selected pharmaceutical manufacturing inputs. These could include an active pharmaceutical ingredient, an intermediate, an important excipient, or another input on which multiple plants depend. Such production could reduce external dependence and support continued production at pharmaceutical plants across the region, without assuming that everything needs to be produced regionally.

 

Producing these inputs could also create industrial and export opportunities. Major markets are stepping up efforts to diversify sources of active pharmaceutical ingredients and other manufacturing inputs and reduce dependence on highly concentrated supply bases. If the region develops competitive production of selected inputs, those products could also serve markets beyond the region that are looking for additional suppliers.

 

The region’s location along routes linking Asian markets with Europe and Africa could further support access to those markets, provided the necessary conditions for competitiveness, quality and regulation are met and appropriate logistics infrastructure is available.

 

Alongside industrial capabilities, cooperation could also build regional capacity in clinical research. Clinical research plays an important role in developing medicines and evaluating their efficacy and safety. Some large studies require substantial numbers of patients or volunteers as well as research centres in more than one country. That scale may be difficult to achieve within a single market.

 

A regional network of centres could therefore broaden the scope of studies, make them easier to conduct, and help generate data more relevant to the region’s populations. Repeated participation would deepen the centres’expertise and strengthen the region’s ability to host international studies. Regulatory coordination among countries could also help the network operate more smoothly and reduce duplication of procedures.

 

Seen in this light, the Jordanian-Saudi proposal raises a question that goes beyond supply arrangements between two countries. To what extent can countries in the region use cooperation to identify what is not visible at the national level alone, test alternatives before they are needed, and build industrial and research capabilities that would be difficult to develop as efficiently within each market on its own? The real value of the regional dimension is not measured by the number of cooperation mechanisms, but by its ability to add alternatives, knowledge and capabilities that make national pharmaceutical security stronger.