Neimeth reduces cost of anti-hypertyensive drugs, launches FITGAH

Neimeth has reduced the cost of its anti-hypertensives – Miniplus, Normoretic, Amlovar and Norduet by 75 percent, saying it is in preparation for the launch of FITGAH (Fight the Good Fight against Hypertension), an innovative national healthcare scheme.

FITGAH, by extension, is Neimeth’s reversed innovative approach that seeks to address the upsurge of hypertension and its deleterious consequences, with affordability of Neimeth’s anti-hypertensive drugs (as already mentioned) as the key weapon.

The issue of affordability, an important index in the effective management of hypertension has encouraged Neimeth to indulge in this price reduction scheme.

This way, the products are made affordable to both prescribers and users to ensure effective management of hypertension because affordability has more often than not, been implicated in non-adherence to therapeutic management in terms of compliance.

Furthermore, the need to make antihypertensive drugs readily affordable in Nigeria is borne out of the fact that one out of every 10 Nigerians is hypertensive, and most times, sufferers are not aware of their condition.

Even in known cases, affordability usually becomes a key factor in its management as the relevant drugs most of the time are considered expensive and beyond the reach of suffers in terms of Affordability

The above scenario ultimately reduces therapeutic compliance and exposes the patient to cardiovascular incidents that could have been avoidable with consistent treatment.

According to Emmanuel Ekunno, CEO of Neimeth, “our corporate decision to reduce the prices of our anti hypertensives by 75 percent means more affordability of these Essential drugs to Nigerians. Hypertension, like other non-communicable diseases’ prevalence is high and on the increase. Hypertension is assuming an epidemic status causing strokes, kidney damages, sudden death, heart attacks, heart failure, arrhythmia, and other forms of cardiovascular incidents/ diseases etc.

The FITGAH scheme is implemented in partnership with Teaching Hospitals, State Hospitals, Local Governments, and Primary Health Centres.

In furtherance of this scheme, Neimeth is adopting an innovative corporate social responsibility model of aligning with a select group of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), Professional bodies like the Nigerian Heart Foundation (NHF), Nigeria Cardiac Society (NCS), Hypertension Society of Nigeria, Federal Ministry of Health, Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN) as well as well -meaning institutions through (advocacy) towards the up-liftment of quality of life of hypertensives in Nigeria. The underlying objective here is to invite these diverse groups as partners and frontally fighting hypertension, thereby check-mating the immediate and possible terminal consequences.

FITGAH employs a multi- faceted approach namely Awareness, Affordability, Availability and Action which will primarily ensure that Neimeth’s objective of lowering the prices of her hypertensive drugs namely Normoretic, Amlovar, Miniplus and Norduet by 75 percent, and making them more affordable and available to Nigerians is achieved.

The Fight against Hypertension will also cascade to the 6 geo-political zones of Nigeria.

At Neimeth’s Hypertension summit to deliberate on the workability of this innovative scheme and coordinated by the doyen of hypertension in Nigeria, Prof Olu Akinkugbe, about 22 renowned cardiologists were in attendance, and notable opinion leaders in cardiovascular medicine such as Prof. Solomon Danbauchi of Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital, Zaria, and Prof. B.J.C. Onwubere of University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Enugu, delivered papers bordering on the incidence and management of hypertension in Nigeria.