The Federal government banned the distribution and production of Codeine based cough syrups in the country, May and Baker Plc has said that the ban caused it to lose N700 million in annual income as well as the loss of raw materials and finished products worth over N350 million.
Briefing journalists in Lagos, weekend, the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of the company, Mr. Nnamdi Okafor said most pharmaceutical manufacturers are contending not only with the loss of revenue but funds already invested in finished and raw materials.
Okafor who described 2019 as a challenging year, urged the Federal government to help pharmaceutical companies to pay for the drugs and then, sell them under strict monitoring and control. “For the raw materials, we want to be allowed to convert them, if the government also wants to take them over and monitor the usage that is also fine. That will be best for us.”
Okafor said currently the company is undergoing a major product portfolio restructuring.
“We were compelled in the last two years to discontinue the production of some of our top cash cow brands as a result of age and change in national treatment protocols and policies.
“Some of the products involved are our Sulpha-based ranges, the Nivaquines, and 221 brands. These products were responsible for over N1.2 billion of our annual revenue in 2017.”
Speaking on local vaccine production, Okafor who hinted that their joint venture company, Biovaccines Nigeria Limited was running fully as an independent company said it is currently perfecting plans to actualize vaccine production.
He recalled that Nigeria spends close to N8 billion every year to import vaccines into the country. Expressing hope that the company would soon actualize the national dream of local production, he said the company would save lives of Nigerians needlessly loss during outbreaks.
“When we start manufacturing locally, we are not going to save N8 billion because the government will still have to pay but there are some other services around the current procurement process and logistics for bringing in vaccines that the government is paying.
“For instance, the government pays 6 percent to UNICEF to bring in vaccines into Nigeria, the government spends a lot of money bringing in the vaccines like clearing it at the port, etc, that will be substantial savings.
There are other technical things around vaccines, by the time Nigeria has a capacity to handle all that, the cost of handling them will be saved. “But above all, Nigeria is going to save lives because sometimes, when you have an epidemic, sometimes the response time is slow if you have to bring in the vaccines from outside.
“By the time we have these vaccines produced here, Nigerians will no longer be dying needlessly. African specified antigens, like Ebola, Lassa fever, some of those vaccines are not a priority for western countries. With capacity for vaccines, we will be able to tackle epidemics and emergency activities.”
