Nigeria is a step closer to acquiring a World Health Organisation (WHO) pre-qualification that would enhance the competitiveness of locally-made drugs at the international market.
This comes as a result of the over N70 billion ($44 million) invested by about 14 members of the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Group of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (PMG-MAN) into factory expansion and upgrade of manufacturing processes in the last four years.
Speaking at a media briefing ahead of the Nigeria Pharma Manufacturers Expo 2013 coming up next week, PMG-MAN chairman, Bunmi Olaopa said: “Various studies and analyses by PMGMAN corroborated by other studies by centre for the development of enterprise, between 2000 and 2010 confirmed that competitiveness and patronage will be improved through quality of products and international certifications. Hence, Nigerian pharma sector has embarked on processes towards international certifications and WHO prequalification.”
“We expect as many as five Nigerian manufacturers to have products pre-qualified by the WHO by 2014”, he added.
According to local newspaper, The Guardian, Evans Medical Plc and Swiss Pharma Nigeria Limited were two of the companies that have fully upgraded their facilities, while Chi Pharma Limited, May & Baker Nigeria Plc and Juhel Nigeria Limited have completed and commissioned new factories within this period.
About nine Nigerian pharmaceutical manufacturing companies are expected to commission their factories before the end of first quarter of next year.
However, the PMG-MAN Chairman said the inability of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to make available the N200 billion ($1.3 billion) intervention fund to its members is one of the setback faced by the association.
The fund which was targeted at boosting manufacturing of drugs in the country is necessary to ameliorate the issue of funding in the country’s pharmaceutical industry, Olaopa said.
He also appealed to the Nigerian government to support the industry more by patronizing local manufacturers.
According to Olaopa, “The industry has installed capacity to meet over 60 per cent of Nigerian drug needs including anti-malaria and anti-retroviral medicines, unfortunately, we are currently operating at less than 40 per cent of total installed capacity.
“Despite huge investments by local manufacturers, the poor level of patronage by ministries, departments and agencies of government is unacceptable. Patronage is critical to the survival of the industry, hence, we consistently advocated for patronage of local manufacturers and the implementation of domestic preference policy of the public procurement Act 2007,” Olaopa said.
