The Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved the establishment of MediPool, a new purchasing organisation designed to drive down the cost of essential medicines and improve nationwide access to high-quality pharmaceutical products.
Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Professor Muhammad Ali Pate, announced this on Monday after the FEC meeting presided over by President Bola Tinubu at the State House in Abuja.
According to Pate, MediPool is a core part of the Tinubu administration’s broader push to reform Nigeria’s healthcare value chain and tackle the persistent rise in drug prices.
“Today, Council approved MediPool, a group purchasing organisation for competitive pricing and to be a supplier of essential medicines and healthcare products across Nigeria,” he said.
Pate explained that MediPool will operate as a public-private partnership, leveraging the government’s significant purchasing power to negotiate better prices from suppliers.
The platform will initially serve through the Basic Health Care Provision Fund and eventually expand to federal tertiary hospitals.
“So it’s using the monopsony power of government as a large buyer of those commodities to negotiate lower prices and then channel those commodities,” he said.
The scope of MediPool’s responsibilities include procurement planning, supply chain and logistics management, quality assurance, regulatory compliance, financial systems, and support for local manufacturers. It also includes capacity building and contingency planning to ensure a steady supply of affordable, high-quality drugs.
“This is a major intervention that will shape the domestic market so that the demand for quality pharmaceuticals can be channeled in a way that lowers costs, improves quality, and stimulates local manufacturing,” Pate noted.
The approval of MediPool follows President Tinubu’s signing of an Executive Order in June 2024, which provided tax and tariff waivers on the importation of raw materials for pharmaceutical production—another move aimed at encouraging local drug manufacturing.
In a related development, the council also approved a contract worth N2.3 billion for the procurement and installation of a cardiac catheterisation machine at the Usmanu Danfodiyo University Teaching Hospital in Sokoto.
Pate said the advanced medical equipment will enhance the hospital’s capacity to diagnose and treat complex heart conditions such as heart attacks and irregular heart