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By Chioma Umeha
Lagos
Pharmacists and pharmaceutical industry managers
have been challenged to take advantage of the current challenges of economic
recession to reinvent the industry and build a strong local manufacturing base
for pharmaceutical products.
One of the experts who threw the challenge at the
89th annual conference of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN) held
recently in Minna, Niger State was Olu Akanmu, Fellow of Nigeria Academy of
Pharmacy.
Akanmu who delivered the keynote address at the
conference entitled, “Pharmaceutical Industry, National Development and A
Fairer Society,” explained that the negative exchange rate movement caused
skyrocketing prices for pharmaceutical products for those who could source
foreign exchange.
The seasoned pharmacist reasoned that this is
because the Nigerian pharmaceutical industry is virtually import-dependent from
raw materials to finished products.
He said that it also implied reduced capacity
utilisation for the pharmaceutical companies who were unable to source foreign
exchange (Forex) for their raw materials.
On the demand side, he said it meant expensive
medicines for the Nigerian people, far above their means and the
rationalisation or the contraction of demand from retail to wholesale and the
factory gates.
For government, he said that the challenge is that
it has to contend with other diverse priority and preferential sectors such as
petrol imports and cannot satisfy their Forex demand at current prices.
“I believe as argued in my earlier economic papers
titled: ‘Government must let markets work’ published in leading Nigerian
newspapers that markets are the most efficient ways to allocate and price
scarce resources.
“Attempts to undo the market, even with patriotic
intentions, as we have seen with petroleum product markets create price
distortions; dis-incentivise private provision to complement public supply,
that which is critical in a period of fiscal constraints.
“It creates a parallel, rent seeking market for
the privileged few to make undeserved profits,” he added.
Akanmu advised government to stay committed to
flexible, market-driven exchange rate policy, to ensure effective co-ordination
of fiscal and monetary policies and deploy political sagacity in the Niger
Delta, to contain militancy and get oil production to recover back to two
million barrels a day from current 1.4million barrels.
“At current oil price of 50 dollars over the
coming period, in addition to a market driven exchange rate that eliminates
speculation premium and distortion, we should see private capital flows of
Forex returning. This along with higher government revenue at 50-dollar oil
price and increased oil production should improve foreign exchange supply and
ultimately help the naira with the wide positive spirals across the economy,”
he stated.
He said that the current situation calls for a
deeper reflection on how we would build and develop a pharmaceutical industry
that is increasingly less import dependent, and by so doing can absorb the
shocks of foreign exchange volatility, which is inevitable in the boom, and
bursts of global economic cycles.
Other competitiveness issues which government must
address and which have consistently been scored low by international
organizations are infrastructure, access to finance, security, corruption and
governance, quality of education, skilled manpower and labour productivity.
He maintained that the low competitiveness
prevents Nigeria from benefiting from the “flying geese” economic theory model
that says that when labour cost increases in developed markets, old
technologies, factories and production moves from developed countries to
lesser-developed countries with cheaper labour cost.
He said that China and Japan benefitted from the
model as factories moved production from the US and Europe to China.
The Pharmacy Fellow, however, warned that unless
government deploys the right economic and governance actions, we may not see
the pharmaceutical geese flying from Asia to Africa or Nigeria.
“The geese may be stuck in Asia, in India and
China for a long time to come. This is essentially what we have today with the
Nigeria pharmaceutical industry with Western multi-nationals dominating advance
medicines category and the Indian and Chinese companies dominating the
manufacturing of basic medicines, leaving our local players to be largely
importers of finished products or raw materials,” he stated.
Akanmu warned that building strong local
pharmaceutical industry is not a matter to be left for the next generation
because it borders on national security for a nation to have a minimum level of
critical capacity to produce the medicines it needs.
“There will always be global trade and relative
comparative advantages among nations for different products. However, to be
absolutely dependent on other countries, to produce very little, to bulk import
most medicines consumed, without a national structured articulated plan, with
specific goals and timelines to gradually replace a critical level of imports
by local manufacturing is tantamount to a pathological health crisis and
perpetual poor access to medicines,” he stated.
He contended that the importance of the industry
to the wellbeing of the people is far bigger than its contribution to the Gross
Domestic Product (GDP).
The fellow of the Academy of Pharmacy insisted
:“The contribution of the pharmaceutical industry to citizen well-being and
their quality of life far exceeds what is captured by its size and share of
national GDP. We must therefore commission a new level of advocacy with
government and policy makers to appreciate better the pharmaceutical industry
and urgently address the disincentives to local pharmaceutical manufacturing
because of its importance to our citizen’s well-being.
“We must also become more visible in the advocacy
to improve the ease of doing business in Nigeria, to improve our national
competitiveness and create jobs for the mass of our youths.
Noting that the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria
has clocked about 90 years old, he added, “The generations before us recognised
their own place and purpose in history and fulfilled their mission. Let this generation too recognise its
place and purpose in history and fulfill its own mission.”
Similarly, Pharm Ahmed Yakasai, President of PSN,
in his address at the conference urged members to revisit their practical
model, given Nigeria’s huge demographic complexities.
He reiterated that such complexities in Nigeria’s
demography, coupled with so much ageing and youthful population with diverse
diseases has challenged pharmacists to revisit their mode of practice.
“Our health profile as a nation is far from being
healthy. This calls on us pharmacists to be part of the solution. It is high
time we responded with speed and positive gait,” Yakasai said.
“We must also recognize that despite our estimated
operational value of over $2 billion, our industry is yet to be a notable
contribution to our nation’s GDP.
“The complexities of our demography – substantial
ageing alongside a youthful population within an estimated over 180 million
people with complex disease profiles – are indications of the need for us to
revisit our practice model and industry positioning.”
