How to develop local medicines industry, by Akanmu

Forum 8 years ago

How to develop local medicines industry, by Akanmu

Pharmacists have given recipe on how to develop the local pharmaceutical industry to meet essential drug needs of the country, and for export to boost Nigeria’s economy.

A Fellow of the Nigeria Academy of Pharmacy (NAP) and Senior Vice President/ Divisional Head of Retail Banking, First City Monument Bank (FCMB) Plc, Olu Akanmu, in a keynote address at the 89th Annual Conference of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN), in Minna, Niger State, said Nigeria must develop and adopt a formal comprehensive National Strategy and Plan of Action for Pharmaceutical Manufacturing (NSPAPM).

The keynote address is titled “Pharmaceutical Industry, National Development and a Fairer Society.”Akanmu explained: “While researching this paper, I was shocked to see that right under our eyes, some smart African countries like Ethiopia have developed such framework and implementing such, essentially leaving Nigeria behind. The following recommendation on the issues, which the NSPAPM must address, is largely adapted from the Ethiopian framework.”

The pharmacist also recommended improvement of access to medicines through quality local production and implementation of the Good Manufacturing Plan Road Map. Akanmu said Nigeria now has four local companies certified as compliant with World Health Organisation (WHO) Good Manufacturing Standard. He congratulated them on the achievement but said there is need to make such standards the norm and not the exception. Akanmu said a formal public and private, inter-sectorial partnership, involving the Federal Ministry of Health (FMoH), Federal Ministry of Trade and Industry (FMTI), National Agency for Food Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Group of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (PGMAN) and the PSN need to be deployed to make this happen.

Akanmu, who was also the Chief Marketing Officer at Airtel Nigeria, said Nigeria must strengthen the National Medicine Regulatory System. “We must continue to strengthen efforts and capacity to eradicate fake drugs and medicine in the pharmaceutical supply chain,” he said.

The pharmacist said the country must create incentives to move local companies progressively along the pharmaceutical industry value chain from importation of finished products to local manufacturing.

Akanmu, who obtained His Bachelor of Pharmacy in 1985 from the prestigious Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, a Master in Business Administration from Lagos State University and a Management Advancement programme from University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, said to encourage local manufacturing, government must deploy incentives that encourage importers to become local producers through the right discriminatory tariffs and tax policies.

He said the current Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) unified tariff model where tariffs on imported finished pharmaceutical products are lower than pharmaceutical raw materials for local manufacturing therefore needs to be reviewed. “It delivers exactly the opposite of this policy objective. It dis-incentivize local manufacturing while encouraging importation of finished products. It kills local jobs in the Nigerian pharmaceutical manufacturing industry while creating jobs in in China and India,” Akanmu said.

The pharmacist said other incentives will include the encouragement of pooled procurement of raw materials to get scale and cost benefits for local manufacturers, a firm formal policy to patronize local players and local products by government, where there are local manufacturing capacities, where prices are competitive and there is adequate compliance to Good Manufacturing Standards. He said similar policies are being implemented called “Local Content” policy in the oil industry to encourage local players. Akanmu said Federal, States and local governments should implement such “local content” policy in their procurement of drugs and medicaments.