Barbados Medical Products Act 2026: what the new authority changes

A new medicines regulator for Barbados

For more than four decades, medicines in Barbados have been governed by a patchwork: the Barbados Drug Service, created in 1980, handled procurement and the national formulary³; the Pharmacy Council under the Pharmacy Act, Cap. 372D, registered pharmacists and pharmacy premises¹²; and the Therapeutic Substances Act, Cap. 330, worked alongside regulations dating from 1950 and 1970¹. In June 2026 Parliament voted to replace that structure with a single statute, the Barbados Medical Products Act, 2026¹.

Its long title is short and direct: "An Act to establish the Barbados Medical Products Authority and provide for the regulation of medical products"¹. Senior Minister Jerome Walcott, who piloted the Bill in the Senate, described the new agency as "a modern, autonomous national regulatory authority", and CBC called it the most significant transformation of the Barbados Drug Service since its inception³.

How the Bill moved through Parliament

The Parliament of Barbados record shows the Bill was read and passed in the Senate on 10 June 2026 and in the House of Assembly on 16 June 2026, with no amendments recorded². Leading off the House debate, the Minister of Health and Wellness called it timely given global supply-chain disruptions and said that 47% of all medical supplies and drugs used in Barbados are imported; according to CBC, she said the disruptions had created "a perfect storm, but also the perfect opportunity for the country"⁴.

Other speakers described what the old law missed. Minister of People Empowerment Adrian Forde told the House that young people mix codeine-based cough syrups with soft drinks and sweets as "lean", that "Mollies are being imported under the guise of vitamins", and that capsules sold as yohimbe or ginseng should be tested at random: "The lab report must come to show that it is indeed yohimbe, ginseng, or any other vitamin and not methamphetamine"¹⁶. Economic Affairs Minister Marsha Caddle said medicines banned in other jurisdictions had been sold in Barbados and described a business sign promising "we cure cancer, we cure this, we cure that"; unverified claims, she said, are "a gap in the legislation and the regulatory regime that must be filled"¹⁷. Senior Minister Kerrie Symmonds called the Bill "a transformational piece of legislation that will chart a course for job opportunities"⁶. The Acting President, J. Gibson, assented on 18 June, and the Act appeared in the Official Gazette (Vol. CLXI, No. 73) on 22 June 2026¹.

What the Barbados Medical Products Act requires

• A broad definition. A "medical product" covers medicines, biologics, diagnostics and medical devices, and expressly includes biological medical products, herbal medicines, extemporary medicines (made in a pharmacy for an individual patient), medicated cosmetics, veterinary products, vaccines, tobacco products, cannabinoids and poisons (section 2). "Biological medical product" includes recombinant therapeutic proteins (section 2)¹.
• Marketing authorisation for everything. "No person shall import, manufacture, advertise, distribute, sell or offer for sale, or otherwise place on the market, a medical product unless the product has been registered and granted marketing authorisation by the Authority" (section 43(1)). Products already on sale have 12 months from commencement to apply (section 43(3))¹.
• A narrow pharmacy-compounding exception. Section 43(4) exempts a product compounded by a pharmacist for a particular patient, but only if no component is banned or has been refused authorisation, and only if its active component already appears in a product that the Authority has authorised¹.
• Licences along the chain. Separate licences are required to manufacture (section 31), re-package or re-label (section 32), import (section 37), store (section 39) and export (section 40) drugs. To import a drug, the importer needs a licence and the drug must come from a manufacturer approved by the Authority (section 37)¹.
• Advertising. Promoting a medical product without the Authority's approval is penalised (section 48(4)), and section 49 bars advertising a medical product "for off-label or non-evidence-based use" or selling one represented as suitable for such a use¹.
• Falsified products. The Act defines a falsified medical product as one whose "identity, composition or source" is false or misrepresented (section 2), allows risk-based sampling to find products "most at risk or likely to be falsified or substandard" (section 52) and gives the Chief Executive Officer power to stop sales and recall batches (section 53)¹.
• Clinical trials. No trial on humans may proceed without clearance from a National Ethics Committee and authorisation from the Authority (section 55)¹.
• Reliance. The Authority may rely on decisions of stringent regulators in other jurisdictions (section 57), a key tool for a small market¹.

Penalties under the new law

Most breaches of the licensing and authorisation rules make a person liable to an administrative penalty of $5,000, payable within 30 days of a notice and recoverable as a debt to the State (sections 43(5), 67 and 69); it can be challenged before a new Barbados Medical Products Appeals Tribunal, with appeal on a point of law to the High Court (sections 62 to 66)¹. Criminal offences are reserved for deception: making, importing, supplying, selling or advertising a medical product "in a manner that is false, misleading or deceptive" about its character, composition, merit or safety carries, on summary conviction, a fine of $50,000 or two years' imprisonment, or both (section 71); the same applies to false statements in an application and to fraudulent tampering with samples (sections 72 and 73)¹. For comparison, the general offence in the Pharmacy Act carries a fine of $2,000 or 12 months (section 35 of Cap. 372D)¹². One detail physicians may hear differently: during the debate, Minister Forde was reported as citing "fifty thousand dollars or five years in prison"¹⁶; in the text published in the Official Gazette, every offence in Part XIII (sections 70 to 73) carries a maximum of two years¹.

What the law repeals, and when it starts

Section 79 repeals the Therapeutic Substances Act, Cap. 330, and revokes the Health Services (Control of Drugs) Regulations, 1970 and the Therapeutic Substances Regulations, 1950. Section 80 says the Act "shall come into operation on a date to be fixed by Proclamation"¹. As of PAHO's latest update, the work is still under way: on 20 October 2026, the Ministry of Health, health professional councils, industry and development partners met in Bridgetown to review draft regulations on market authorisation, licensing of establishments, post-market surveillance, pharmacovigilance and clinical trials, which PAHO described as a major step toward the Authority's "operational launch"⁹. Earlier PAHO-supported missions and working sessions, reported in November 2025, April 2026 and July 2026, covered draft regulations and assisted self-benchmarking, then market surveillance and pharmacovigilance, then registration and market authorisation, reliance, inspection and licensing⁸¹⁰¹¹; PAHO says it works with the European Union on this support⁷.

The target is the World Health Organization's Global Benchmarking Tool, which WHO describes as "the primary means" by which it evaluates regulatory systems; Barbados has committed to reaching Maturity Level 3 by 2029⁹¹³.

Why it matters for physicians in Barbados

In 2017 WHO estimated that 1 in 10 medicines in low- and middle-income countries failed quality control tests, and it says such products "are often sold online or in informal markets"¹⁴. In March 2026, PAHO warned that demand for GLP-1 medicines may push them into unofficial channels, including social media, and that falsified or substandard versions may contain incorrect doses or undeclared substances¹⁵. Once in force, the Barbados Medical Products Act gives the state tools it lacked: product registration, import licences, risk-based testing, recalls and penalties for misleading marketing¹. For prescribers, the practical point is that a product with no marketing authorisation will not lawfully be on the market, and an off-label or unproven indication cannot lawfully be advertised¹.