The federal government said that the pharmaceutical companies leaving Nigeria are doing so because they failed to domesticate their products in the country.
Dr. Tunji Alausa, the Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare, made this disclosure at a World Cancer Day symposium held in Abuja on Monday, February 5.
“We have to change this narrative of companies leaving our country because of the difficulty of doing business, that’s not correct. Let’s face the fact, Nigeria is endowed with an abundance of manpower, Alausa said.
“If you go to any advanced democratic nation, the biggest chunk of any operating cost to run a business is personnel, we have it in abundance in Nigeria, at a very reasonable and cheap rate.
“These pharmaceutical companies left because we have pharmaceutical laws. There’s a NAFDAC policy of 5+5, after you have marketed drugs for five years, they are expected to domesticate their production.
“They didn’t domesticate their production, so they continued to market for decades. Now we’re reviewing our pharmaceutical laws to ensure we are not in this bad situation again.
“As companies are leaving, the country is ripe for investment, other companies will come, we have an abundance of opportunities here to manufacture. We have a population of 220 million, that’s a big consuming population.
“There’s a new interest in coming back to the country. We have President Bola Ahmed Tinubu that is quickly working out the ease of doing business in the country. Our country is going to become the destination of investors in the nearest future, the policies are being put together.
“So when a few companies exit, we shouldn’t be worried, we are working to encourage more companies to come in the country and we are also domesticating and enhancing our pharmaceutical companies to fill those gaps.”
