NAFDAC Pushes for 70% Locally Manufactured Drugs

By Adedapo Adesanya

The National Agency for Food Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has noted that it is working towards ensuring that 70 per cent of the medicines used in Nigeria are produced locally.

The Director-General of the drug regulatory agency, Mrs Christiana Adeyeye, made the disclosure in a statement signed by the Resident Media Consultant to NAFDAC, Mrs Sayo Akintola.

Currently, only 30 per cent of the drugs consumed in Nigeria are manufactured locally while 70 per cent is imported.

According to the NAFDAC boss, this will be done through the support of its development partners which has carried out assessments of 165 Local Pharmaceutical Manufacturers in Nigeria as part of the current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMP) Roadmap for NAFDAC and the pharmaceutical industry.

She noted that the outcome of the process enabled NAFDAC to make risk-based GMP categorisation that is being used to guide companies on the path to GMP Certification and ensure compliance.

‘’Let me emphasize that promotion of local manufacturing has been premium on my priority list. This is to reverse the trend of 30 per cent locally manufactured drug products toward 70 per cent.

“It is not just that we are getting stricter on the ones overseas, we are getting stricter by using global best practices on the local manufacturing companies as well.

“For local companies, we check their products randomly. If a product manufacturing line does not meet the standards, we shut the line down until they meet these standards and specifications before they can begin to operate the line again.”

This shift is based on the Quality Management Systems and WHO Global Benchmarking Audits the Agency had in 2018/2019.

“Those two auditing that we have gone through and which we are still going through in an effort to meet the recommended corrective actions are part of the Agency’s quality assurance toward continued safeguarding the health of the nation,” she said.

Mrs Adeyeye warned those importing fake and substandard products to either stop or be ready to face the consequences.

She insisted that “such unscrupulous elements would meet the waterloo at the ports here in Nigeria where NAFDAC’s Port Inspection directorate officials are working round the clock to intercept illicit consignments.

‘’We wait for them at the port. Many times, we intercept them because the CRIA agents would have told us about those companies that ought to have gone through them for inspection but did not go.”