Director General, National Agency for Food Administration and Control, NAFDAC, Prof Mojisola Adeyeye has urged pharmaceutical companies to take advantage of the African Free Trade Agreement to be able to trade freely among African countries.
Speaking on ‘’From Green to Gold: Operational Realities in the 21st Century at the 50th Anniversary of Daily-Need Industries Limited’’ in Lagos, the NAFDAC boss emphasized that Research and Development (R&D) is an important creativity and innovation that several companies will need to incorporate into the manufacturing environment.
Mojisola Adeyeye, in a statement signed by the NAFDAC Resident Media Consultant, Sayo Akintola, in Lagos on Sunday, stated that this will encourage research and clinical trials of new molecules, immune-modulators, complementary alternative medicines, especially for some non-communicable diseases such as cancer, diabetes, amongst others.
Mojisola Adeyeye pointed out that an innovation that COVID-19 pandemic has taught us in Nigeria is embracing as long overdue the manufacturing of vaccines, active pharmaceutical ingredients, and excipients, stressing that until we have at least five companies as a starter, making these pharmaceutical ingredients, and one or two companies manufacturing vaccines, Nigeria will remain insecure.
She said Daily-Need has sown a seed using one product, the Penicillin Ointment, and the company has grown to over 20 products categories. The Bible stated in Ecclesiastes 11:6: “Sow your seed in the morning, and at evening let your hands not be idle, for you do not know which will succeed, whether this or that, or whether both will do equally well”.
Mojisola Adeyeye said this sheds light on operational realities in any century, especially 21st Century as she identified The Sower, The Soil, and Creativity and Innovation of the Sower as the three operational realities in pharmaceutical development.
She described the Sower as the Founder, the Managing Director, Leader, etc.; the question can be asked, what is the characteristics of the Sower are as it relates to the “green to gold” concept. These attributes of the Sower should include the following: Diligence (Not be idle) strategic, Good Manager of time. Adopt business continuity plan in case there are unexpected issues that may lead to “change” in original plan and being Progressive in continuous quality monitoring.
Having read through the history of Daily-Need, she asserted that these attributes have been used in various ways as shown in the successful completion of the company’s multi-billion Naira factory designed to NAFDAC, a WHO & USFDA cGMP standard that has now positioned the company well for good manufacturing practices.
Prof. Adeyeye disclosed that Daily-Need was one of the companies that were inspected under the NAFDAC/UNIDO cGMP Road Map using international standards, and some of the indicators for that inspection included three for the manufacturing site – premise, equipment, and utilities.
