Since the mid-1990s, Tunisia has adopted an industrial policy aiming to enhance R&D and innovation in the emerging and high added value industries, such as pharmaceuticals. In this paper, we intend to evaluate the efficiency of this policy i.e. to measure the pharmaceutical innovation potential, performances and features in Tunisia. Our approach is double-dimensioned. First, at the firm level, we lead an empirical survey in order to analyze the knowledge-capital of the pharmaceutical firms in Tunisia and elaborate a composite index measuring their innovativeness (potential and performances). Second, we aggregate the discussion to the industry level inorder to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the national and the sectoral (pharmaceutical) systems of innovation in Tunisia. The results show that in spite of a favoring innovation policy and an improving local innovative potential, the pharmaceutical innovation performances in Tunisia remain lower than sought. This gap is attributed to some deficiencies within the national innovation system. With reference to our empirical results and to the learning the Jordanian pharmaceutical industry experience (as an innovation success story), we conclude by defining some recommendations aiming at improving the local pharmaceutical innovation in Tunisia, more globally by consolidating the strengths and remedying the weaknesses of the innovation system.