Greetings Xechemers from sunny Abuja...
Yes, you read correctly, I'm a currently sitting in Abuja, Nigeria, it's 2:02am (I only know it's night because I finally stopped sweating about an hour ago...).
I'm officially here representing GDPAU and have done the following in the 42 hours I've been here (including discussions about Xechem, just because there's a connection between GDPAU and Xechem):
1). Unless an extension is granted, Xechem loses the Nicosan license as of 11:59pm on January 31st. Why? Because they didn't pay the due royalties, they didn't file the proper reports and they ignored repeated letters asking for these things to be cleared up. Dr. Swift has been meeting with NIPRD and probably others to try to save it and is to the point that he wants a one-month extension. The decision will be made tomorrow and I'll know by 3pm what happens. We happen to have been spending most of the week with a new Nigerian Pharmaceutical company that might end up with the license, but that's just conjecture and hope, there could be a lot of other things going on behind the scenes. I know this because we've had meetings regarding number 5 below with two of the three people that will make the decision on the Nicosan agreement and they wanted to keep us informed. Xechem's board of directors has known this for a month, I knew it 3 weeks ago because I called NIPRD on another matter and promised the DG I would keep it to myself...
2). It was confirmed to us yesterday that Xechem had duty-free status for the equipment that was shipped in 2007.
3). We had a meeting with a Federal Agency that is working on an project that needs a consultant for the extraction and manufacturing process. By the end of the discussion I had a verbal committment to rent space in a certain unfinished building I've heard of at Sheda in Abuja. She also wants to collaborate with us to establish an Ayruvedic University in Abuja.
4). Today we were to go to a meeting with a Minister and his staff. When the meeting started we had nine Federal Government employees, five newspapers and a TV station covering the meeting. Might hit the papers tomorrow and maybe the news tonight, not sure though. Felt like an ambush until the praise and admiration from each member of the Federal employees started for a certain member of our group.
5). Next week we are signing a world-wide license agreement for a Diabetic drug made out of plants grown in Nigeria and discovered by a Nigerian Scientist. He has a US patent and I think patents in a few other countries. There will be many members of the press, many Federal employees, a few Ministers and a few DGs of Federal Agencies. It's being made into a pretty big deal we are finding out...
6). We met with the new DG of NAFDAC. He's very excited about the diabetic drug and hopes to work with us to get quick approval. He has also agreed to discuss the possibility of letting us take the lead in helping him establish a unified program for drug approvals in Africa. The proposal is to develop one set of standards and when a drug is approved in Ghana, it's approved everywhere in Africa, very similar to how they do it in the European Union. We are going to present the specs and then work through it with him.
7). I had a 30 minute discussion with three people who have given me very clear and detailed information on how pharma sales work here.
8). We've had 5 meetings in two days and well over 75% of the people we've met have immediate family that has sickle cell. The internal number in Nigeria with sickle is between 10 and 20 million. Nobody really knows because most don't go to hospitals, but they laughed at me when I asked about the 4-8 million figure we've used.
9). Nobody here can believe that Xechem can't sell Nicosan.
10). My next letter is to put an official proposal in front of the Xechem creditors committee because numbers 3 (contract drug extraction, manufacturing and possible sales license) and 5 (diabetic drug) will be licensed to Xechem if we are successful in getting our plan approved...
Oh, BTW, Dr. Swift is in town too, maybe we'll get together for lunch...
