Director-General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Prof Mojisola Adeyey, has assured Nigerians the high cost of medicines in the country will soon be over, following the agency’s partnership with the pharmaceutical industry to bring down the cost of drugs.
Speaking in the same vein, the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Ali Pate, also assured Nigerians that the various policy measures already put in place by the Federal government would soon begin to reflect positively on the cost of essential medical commodities.
The duo made the assertions at the webinar lecture organized by The Cable Newspaper to celebrate its tenth anniversary under the theme: ‘’Addressing Costs of Medicines’’.
Adeyeye identified the rejuvenation of the local pharmaceutical industry as a panacea for the high cost of medicines in the country, stating that locally manufactured medicinal products would be more accessible and affordable compared to imported drugs.
NAFDAC’s Resident Media Consultant Sayo Akintola, quoted Adeyeye in a statement to have said the devaluation of the Naira accounted largely for the high cost of production locally as the high exchange rate made procurement of raw materials and equipment imported for production extremely high, adding that due to difficulty associated with procurement of dollars, the cost of the imported drugs has also hit the roof.
About the same time, she said two multinationals left, which caused the cost of drugs they produce to go up.
To encourage the local pharmaceutical industry to grow, Adeyeye reiterated that NAFDAC under her leadership started the “5 plus 5” regulatory scheme where a company that has been importing drugs that the local pharmaceutical industry can produce will get a last five-year renewal. During the five-year renewal period, the importer must migrate to local manufacturing or partner with a local manufacturer. This is an outcome of a study that was done in 2019 that revealed that the top 5 drugs that are imported are also the top 5 drugs that are manufactured in Nigeria.
From the initiative, she disclosed that more than 30 per cent of new companies in Nigeria are results of “5 plus 5” because many importers started building their own companies or partnering with local manufacturers through contract manufacturing. That is access. That’s the way to make the drug available, accessible’’, she said.
The NAFDAC boss explained that the agency also did another policy change called NAFDAC Ceiling 34 wherein drugs under those ceilings cannot be imported. According to her, the ceiling was increased from nine to 34 drugs when she assumed office so that those 34 drugs that are manufactured locally with good installed capacity would not be allowed into the country.
‘’Our manufacturers import everything except water’’, she said, adding that the raw materials – Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) and the non-active called Excipients are all imported.
‘’I told the industry operators that we need to start making some APIs locally and that has resulted in EMZOR Pharmaceuticals almost completing their facilities in Shagamu. They are going to be making four anti-malaria APIs – sulfadoxime, Pyrimethamine, Artemether and Lumefantrine. The Fidson consortium is also planning to manufacture some APIs under the initiative that is aimed at reducing the cost of drugs eventually.
‘’But we cannot start manufacturing locally without strengthening the regulatory because we have never regulated local manufacturing of APIs.’’, she said. Therefore, in preparation for the manufacturing, the intellectual capacity has to be strengthened; NAFDAC organized a workshop in October 2023 that attracted 150 participants – regulators, manufacturers, professors from the Universities and the future workforce -part four students.