Pharmaceutical industry rides on BoI intervention to secure export status

Nigeria’s pharmaceutical industry has joined the league of world-class pharmaceuticals certified by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to produce and export drugs.

This feat can be attributed to the Bank of Industry’s (BoI) regular intervention funds to the sub-sector, which have now enabled players to upscale their production facilities and quality control systems to international standards.

Swiss Pharma Nigeria Limited and May and Baker Nigeria plc both obtained the current Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) compliance certification from WHO, which will now enable them to expand their capacity, produce and export their products to other countries.

Rasheed Olaoluwa, managing director, BoI, who paid a working visit to both companies’ corporate offices in Lagos, said pharmaceutical sector was one that the government would continue to support to flourish under the industrial revolution policy and also to ensure sustainable quality healthcare provision for its citizens.

Addressing the management of Swipha, the BoI boss said the bank was pushing the Federal Government’s development objective of local production as against dependence on imports, in order to

conserve the nation’s foreign reserve, which was subjected to undue pressure owing to the volume of imports.

After taking a tour of Swipha’s production plant, Olaoluwa said he was pleased that the company had made good use of the support of the bank to upgrade its facility and obtain the WHO GMP certification.

“I must say that Swipha is the first company not only in Nigeria but in West Africa to be so certified, so it is a great achievement and we are very proud in BoI that we have been instrumental to this feat. The

next stage is now to go to product specific certification and we are also in discussion with them to ensure that they achieve that as well,” he said.

He was optimistic that Nigeria was nearing a point where it will stop importing drugs and start exporting to other countries consistent with the Nigerian Industrial Revolution Programme (NIRP), especially as about five other pharmaceutical companies supported by BoI were also close to being certified by the WHO.

In his remarks, the chairman/chief executive, Swipha, Colin Cummings said, “I would expect with what we have done so far and what we intend to do with our products that we can more than quadruple turnover and job creation because of Nigeria’s market potential.

“Bank of Industry has been crucial to us moving ahead and without their support we wouldn’t have managed to get to where we are. So, quickly and also, we need their assistance in getting to the next stage which is the pre-qualification of specific products.”

At May and Baker corporate office, the BoI boss commended the company for setting up a pharma centre which was the best and biggest pharmaceutical manufacturing plant in West and Central Africa.

“Bank of Industry essentially focuses on long-term plant and machinery facility, but we are now in the process of finalising a partnership with some banks such that they can work with us to provide working

capital and in a few weeks our customers can begin to benefit from that. The whole essence is for us to control how much additional spread the commercial banks will be able to charge our customers,” he

said.

Responding, Nnamdi Okafor, managing director, May and Baker, disclosed that by June 2015, the company would have had its anti-retroviral drug certified, having upgraded their facility to WHO standards with an expanded capacity, that has enabled the creation of additional 500 jobs and about 1000 indirect jobs with BoI’s support.

He disclosed that Nigeria imports over 90 per cent of inputs in the pharmaceutical industry and urged the government to revamp the petrochemical industry so that the cost of local production can be drastically reduced.

Odinaka Anudu