The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC, has stated that the agency manages drug availability and accessibility in the country, it does not regulate prices.
Disclosing this on Tuesday, the Director General of the agency, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, stated that one strategy to reduce the escalating cost of medications is to have more local pharmaceutical companies coming up as overseas manufacturers exit the nation.
Adeyeye who spoke during a webinar hosted by TheCable to commemorate it's 10th anniversary, suggested the stabilising of the devaluation of the foreign exchange to support the domestic drug manufacturing sector.
At the event themed "Addressing the escalating costs of medicines", the NAFDAC boss said if Nigeria failed to focus on the local manufacturing industry, drug insecurity would persist.
"If we do not focus on local manufacturing, we will continue to have drug insecurity. It is not a solution you can get overnight. There is nothing the multinationals are making that we cannot make in Nigeria. The one item we cannot make is the inhaler for asthma.
"When this issue started, pharmaceutical companies contacted us to ask if they could import some products and we gave them permission to import."
Noting that NAFDAC reacts to shortages, Adeyeye noted, "If the company reaches out and we confirm there is a shortage, we ask them to import and we give them a faster registration process. These are the ways to reduce the impact of the exit of multinationals.
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"NAFDAC does not control or regulate prices. We control access. We make sure that products are accessible. If local manufacturers' prices are higher than those imported, the reality is that local manufacturers import everything.
"But sometimes some of the things being imported may not be of quality. If it is too good to be true, it may not be true. The fact that local manufacturers' prices are higher is the reality. The fact that the drug is cheap doesn't mean it is of quality. The buyer must be careful. Don't buy medicines from the street corners, buy from the pharmacies."
Adeyeye cautioned that Nigeria would continue to have "drug insecurity" if government failed to focus on local manufacturing.
"In 2018 in Ilorin, Kwara, the National Association of Industrial Pharmacists invited me, and I categorically stated that we would change the narrative from 70 percent importation to 30 percent. But when we have had decades of decay, that couldn't have happened overnight. In 2019, we started the five plus five directive.
"We did a study where the top five drugs that are imported are also the top five manufactured in Nigeria. We did that before the pandemic. From that initiative, more than 30 percent of companies in Nigeria are the result of the five plus five because many importers started building their own companies or partnering with local manufacturers through contract manufacturing. That is the way to make drugs available."
