Nigeria: Produce Drugs With International Standards, Pate Tells NIPRD
By Ruby Leo, 13 March 2012Comment (1)
The minister of State for Health Dr. Muhammade Pate has challenged the National Institute for Pharmaceutical Research and Development ( NIPRD) to produce herbal products of International standard that could compete with products developed in India and China.
This according to him, and would engender economic development and employment generation. Dr. Pate made this known when he paid a visit to NIPRD Headquarters to access their contribution to the health sector.
He stressed that the Health sector is not only for health delivery but could also be a catalyst to stimulate economic growth and create employment for the teeming population of Nigerians.
Dr. Pate stated that the market for herbal products is growing due to increasing reliance on alternative medication globally; he therefore challenged NIPRD researchers and scientists to package their products professionally for international and local markets.
Earlier, The Director- General of NIPRD, Profesor Gamaniel disclosed that NIPRD had discover drug leads on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis TB, Malaria, diabetes, and Asthma but added that the institute requires funds to proceed on clinical trials.
He also stated that NIPRD would soon commence the resuscitation of NIPRISAN production and therefore called on the minister of state for health to support the implementation of clinical trials on the various drugs leads.
The NIPRD Boss noted that some of the challenges encountered at the institute include poor funding, power supply and inadequate research and development consumables, and pleaded with the minister to critically look in to the issue of funding, power and the commissioning of the main Laboratory Complex.
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LaMonte Forthun
Mar 13 2012, 11:59
I can only imagine what was going through Prof. Gamaniel's head as Dr. Pate was "challenging" NIPRD to produce products to International standards. I'm guessing that Dr. Pate hasn't been briefed on the fact that NIPRD's flagship product, NIPRISAN, was basically hijacked by the creditors of Xechem, the company that had the license to produce it.
In July, it would be three years since those creditors took Xechem into Receivership, closed the doors of the company and shut down production, preventing those that had been depending on the product from getting it. Let me repeat that - THREE YEARS… NIPRD has had to sit back and deal with those creditors dragging their feet while trying to decide what to do with the company. When NIPRD decided they had waited long enough and was going to move on and find someone else to produce their product, they had to deal with legal action by those creditors (this was two years ago).
I don't challenge the fact that the creditors should get paid, but their interests should not have been put in front of those with Sickle Cell or NIPRD's. Production should have been restarted while the interested parties dealt with the financial issues in the background. The challenge here is for all those not involved to get out of the way and let NIPRD do what NIPRD needs to do to get NIPRISAN back on the market.
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