NAFDAC DG Seeks Foreign Partners’ Support for Local Vaccine Production

Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja

The Director General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, has solicited the support of international partners to establish vaccine manufacturing facilities in Nigeria.

She said that opening vaccine manufacturing companies will hasten the push by the agency to attain World Health Organisation (WHO) Maturity Level 4 for vaccine lot release.

Adeyeye made the call at the 8th Nigeria Pharma Manufacturers’ Expo in Lagos, jointly organised by the Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Group of Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (PMG-MAN) and PGE Expo Pvt Ltd.

A statement signed by NAFDAC’s Resident Media Consultant Sanyo Akintola said the DG acknowledged the continued support of international partners in NAFDAC’s attainment of Maturity Level 3, and challenged them to contribute to fill-and-finish modular vaccine manufacturing.

According to Adeyeye, NAFDAC has nine functions to meet for full benchmarking for medicines and vaccines, but has only been benchmarked in eight, with lot release for vaccines outstanding.

“We want to call on our international partners that have been of tremendous help. Without them we wouldn’t have been here. I want to challenge them to contribute to fill and finish modular vaccine manufacturing so that we can get our vaccine lot release,” she said.

She said Nigeria has what it takes to attain the level except local vaccine manufacturing, adding that the cost has been estimated and will not be too high. “We cannot afford to go back to where we used to be,” she said.

Recalling that Nigeria used to manufacture vaccines, Adeyeye said it is time to return to local production.

She commended President Bola Tinubu for the Executive Order 2024, describing it as game-changing and bringing life to NAFDAC’s clamour for incentives for local manufacturers operating under harsh conditions.

“I was championing incentives for the manufacturers until President Tinubu came on board with the Executive Order of 2024,” she said, noting that both the Coordinating Minister of Health and Minister of State bought into the rationale leading to unlocking the healthcare value chain.

She said NAFDAC’s Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) Roadmap audit of over 165 companies, funded by USAID and executed by United States Pharmacopeia, led to improved quality and 70 percent decrease in import of products under the ‘5 plus 5’ and Ceiling Initiatives between 2021 and 2025.

She also said that NAFDAC became a member of International Medical Device Forum in 2023 while, its Yaba laboratory became WHO pre-qualified in September 2023, and it became first agency in Sub-Saharan Africa to be successfully re-benchmarked for Maturity Level 3.

In his remarks, Chairman of PMG-MAN, Mr. Oluwatosin Jolayemi, described the expo as only complete pharma manufacturing platform in Central and West Africa and commended Adeyeye for driving international best practices.

He called for extension of the presidential executive order by two years at expiration in March 2027, saying medicine security requires policy consistency.

No fewer than 132 companies from US, China, Argentina, Egypt, India, Rwanda, Austria, UAE, France, Germany, Indonesia and Nigeria participated in the two-day expo.