The ban by the Federal Government on codeine-containing cough syrups has affected the country’s pharmaceutical industry, especially companies that produce codeine or Benylin cough syrups say May & Baker Plc.
The pharmaceutical industry said that the ban caused it to lose N700 million in annual income as well as loss of raw materials and finished products worth over N350 million.
“Federal Government’s ban of production and distribution of codeine-based cough syrups, government is still holding onto finished product valued at N1 billion.
“The move had taken a huge toll on the industry’s bottom lines and manufacturing production lines,” said Nnamdi Okafor, managing director/ chief executive officer CEO, May & Baker Plc at the company’s end of year media parley in Lagos recently.
Okafor said that as far as the pharma industry is a concern, the industry has been fighting to see how the government would buy back these products.
He said that though, the government is promising to buy back and pay to replace the finished products and then industry we have some agreement on what to do with the raw materials stating that all of us brought in the codeine raw materials following approval from the government.
“These materials were duly authorized by the government and we believe that government has a responsibility to ensure that these companies that are employing Nigerians will not lose money as a result,” he said.
Okafor explained that it is not that these products are dangerous or harmful, but the problem is that they were being abused.
“People have been using them in ways that are not labeled to be used and that is something to do with enforcement of how drugs are used in Nigeria,” he said.
Okafor who described 2019 as a challenging year, urged the Federal government to help pharmaceutical companies to revert a 20 percent tariff for raw materials for battery manufacturing companies.
He explained that the company, in spite of the challenging environment, invested in key strategic initiatives in 2019, the company took steps to actualise its new anti-sickle cell medicines and nutraceuticals.
“These products would be launched in 2020 given the stage the company had reached and our joint venture company, Biovaccines Nigeria Limited is running fully now as an independent company. It is currently perfecting steps to actualize vaccine production.”
“Nigeria spends close to N8 billion every year to import vaccines into the country. We are hopeful that the company will receive all the needed support to actualize this national dream soon,” he said.
Okafor added that the company recently signed a contract manufacturing agreement with Sanofi Nigeria, a subsidiary of a French pharmaceutical company to produce key products from its World Health Organisation standard production facility.
He said the project would not only increase its capacity utilisation but also signal to the world that Nigeria had arrived in pharmaceutical manufacturing.
ANTHONIA OBOKOH
