By Modupe Gbadeyanka
May & Baker Plc has again cemented its position as one of the leading pharmaceutical manufacturing companies in Nigeria by signing an agreement with the local subsidiary of a notable French drugs company, Sanofi Nigeria Limited.
A statement from May & Baker, also locally known as M&B, explained that it would use its facility in Nigeria, which conform with the standard set by the World Health Organisation (WHO), to produce four brands of Sanofi drugs specifically tailored for the Nigerian and West African markets.
“Under this agreement, May & Baker would use her World Health Organisation certified manufacturing facility to produce four product brands of Sanofi for sale in Nigeria and the West African market,” the firm stated in a notice to the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Wednesday.
The products to be manufactured by May & Baker for Sanofi include Flagyl tablets and Suspension and Tarivid tablets, anti-infective medicines and Malareich tablets, an anti-malaria drug.
The company said it has capacity to produce six billion tablets and 37.5million 60ml liquid medicines annually.
“This agreement not only serves as a direct response to the call by the National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC) for pharmaceutical brand owners to localise their production using locally available capacity to produce quality products in Nigeria but also a step forward in Nigeria’s quest for medicine security and self-sufficiency,” the pharmaceutical company emphasised.
May & Baker has invested heavily in setting up internationally standard production facility and obtain WHO Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) certification to enable her extend services to other products owners who might wish to heed the call to localise their medicine production in Nigeria.
May & Baker is the first pharmaceutical manufacturing company in Nigeria founded on September 4, 1944. The company went through different ownerships of foreign multinationals but became fully indigenous in 2002. It was listed on the local bourse in 1994 where it has won the coveted award of sectoral leadership of Healthcare sector six times.
In 2008, the company was awarded the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) Quality, Management Certificate, in recognition of the conformity of her management system to best international standards. This was further upgraded in 2017 to NIS ISO 9001:2015.
The company has won several other awards including the PMGMAN awards for the attainment of WHO GMP. In 2018, May & Baker also won the highly coveted National Productivity Order of Merit award.
