The goal of the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare is implementing and ‘Unlocking Healthcare Value-Chain’ Initiative, in collaboration with other MDAs, is to restructure the ecosystem of health product manufacturing, health logistics services, and related health retail services.
To achieve this the minister said they were providing effective governance of the sector by purposeful regulatory policies to ensure that pharmaceutical and other medical consumables either locally-produced or imported have the highest standards of quality, safety and efficacy.
In collaboration with national industry leaders, stakeholders and the WHO, the minister said they are determined to facilitate the pre-qualification process for pharmaceutical quality control, laboratories standardization, and proofing of active pharmaceutical ingredients to ensure the efficacy of the products.There was a meeting with Deus Mubangizi , (Head, @WHO PQ Unit) to discuss the pre-qualification components and how to upscale national capacity for local manufacturing and efficient procurement of pharmaceutical products and medical consumables. The focus of the meeting was on strengthening the capacity of Nigerian manufacturers and health value chain players to undertake the preparatory and dossier submission processes for successful inspection and assessment of their applications by WHO officials.
They further discussed how to increase economies of scale via pooled-procurement of pharmaceutical and medical consumables and the need to upgrade capacity for bioequivalence tests. Fostering access to key health products that meet global standards of quality, safety, efficacy and performance, as well as optimized use of health resources underpin the promise to deliver improved health outcomes for all Nigerians.
