Stakeholders in the pharmaceutical industry have commenced efforts to unify their activities with the aim of enhancing efficiency, preventing duplication and ultimately reducing the cost of drugs in the country.
This formed the basis for discussion at a High-level Stakeholders’ Engagement On Harmonising Pharmaceutical Sector Activities held in Abuja on Wednesday.
The meeting was aimed at collating insights from previous activities and consolidating strategies to align with the overarching objectives of the Improving Access to Medicines through Policy and Technical Support (IMPACT) project.
Speaking on the need to avoid duplication of efforts, the Supply Chain Management Officer, World Health Organisation (WHO), Dr. Tayo Hamzat,
said the meeting was timely given the number of ongoing interventions in the sector:
“This activity is one that is required at this moment, with multiple interventions going on, at the risk of duplicating efforts, at the risk of running parallel programmes, and at the risk of we going all over the place without concrete direction.
“Harmonisation of the pharmaceutical activities will lead to faster access to health products. It will lead to lower cost, increased efficiencies, and enhanced regulatory oversight. So it will require engagement, which is what we are doing now.
“It will require collaborative effort and focusing on strengthening national systems”, he said.
Hamzat noted that Nigeria’s pharmaceutical system was “robust and huge” but faced management challenges due to lack of coordinated frameworks and unchecked assumptions.
“We have so much to gain from the pharmaceutical industries if well managed. A good framework will take into consideration the full supply chain cycle of pharmaceuticals in this country,” he added.
On his part, the Director-General of the West Africa Institute of Public Health, Dr. Francis Ohanyido described the engagement as “common sense,” given the need for resource optimisation in an evolving development financing landscape:
“One of the best ways to avoid wasting resources is to have these common conversations and to see what we are doing in our own different spaces. Market shaping is a critical tool for development and one of the potentials that this harmonisation can do for us is to identify clear areas and gaps that we can fill for the Africa Continental Free Trade Area”, he said.
Meanwhile, the Programme Manager for Health and Nutrition at the European Union Delegation to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Dr. Anthony Ayeke said the European Union remained committed to fostering a robust, locally driven pharmaceutical sector.
According to Dr. Ayeke, “by harmonising our activities we can accelerate local production, reduce dependency on imports and enhance the resilience of Nigeria’s healthcare system”.
He further suggested streamlining of regulatory frameworks, building capacity across the value chain, fostering innovation and promoting public-private partnerships to accelerate outcomes for the sector.
Also speaking, the National Coordinator, Pharmaceutical Value Chain Transformation Committee (PVAC), Dr. Abdu Mukhtar commended ongoing efforts under the IMPACT project.
Represented by Dr Muhammad Balarabe, Technical Associate at PVAC, Mukhtar said the committee remained steadfast in its mandate to catalyse local pharmaceutical production, streamline regulations and attract sustainable investments.
“Let us leverage this platform to strengthen partnerships, optimise resources and ensure that every intervention aligns with the overarching vision of affordable, high quality healthcare for all Nigerians,” he said.
The Director-General, National Institute for Pharmaceutical Research and Development (NIPRD), Dr. Obi Adigwe, said fragmented interventions, regulatory redundancies and duplications had hindered sector growth for too long.
Represented by Prof. Philip Builders. Professor of Pharmaceutics at NIPRD, he said that equitable access to quality medicine was the bedrock of universal healthcare coverage.
“Yet millions of Nigerians still face barriers in accessing essential healthcare commodities. This is not simply a health challenge, it is an issue of equity, national security and economic survival.
“Harmonising is not merely about filling gaps or avoiding duplications, it is about creating synergy where policies, investments and technical frameworks are deliberately aligned to deliver measurable outcomes,” he said.
Adigwe therefore, urged participants to develop practical short, medium, and long-term strategies to make the pharmaceutical sector self-reliant, globally competitive, and capable of meeting Nigeria’s healthcare needs.
