Nigeria’s dependence on imported medicines has dropped from 70 to 60 per cent, according to the Director-General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Mojisola Adeyeye.
Mrs Adeyeye said the reduction showcases gradual progress in the country’s efforts to promote local manufacturing and reduce reliance on imported drugs.
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The professor spoke in Lagos on Thursday at the 2025 Investiture and Public Lecture of the Nigeria Academy of Pharmacy, where she called for more collaboration in building national capacity for innovation, manufacturing, and health security.
The event, which also featured the investiture of 14 new Fellows of the Academy, brought together pharmacists, policymakers, regulators, and industry leaders to discuss the role of pharmaceutical innovation in nation-building.
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Nigeria far behind target
As of 2021, NAFDAC had announced a goal of reducing drug importation from 70 to 30 per cent by 2025 through increased local production.
While the country is still far from achieving that target, recent policies and regulatory reforms have contributed to some of the gains.
The agency has implemented a set of initiatives designed to stimulate local manufacturing and raise production quality to global standards.
One key initiative is the “5plus5” regulatory scheme, which grants companies a final five-year renewal to import medicines that can be produced locally.
At the end of that period, they must either establish local factories or partner with existing Nigerian producers.
From that initiative, she disclosed in 2024 that more than 30 per cent of new companies in Nigeria are a result of the“5plus5” because many importers started building their own companies or partnering with local manufacturers through contract manufacturing.
NAFDAC has also expanded the import “ceiling” list, the number of essential medicines that can no longer be imported because they can now be made domestically, from nine to 36.
Rebuilding NAFDAC
Mrs Adeyeye said her first years in office were spent rebuilding the agency’s systems and workforce to restore credibility and align operations with international standards.
“When I joined in 2017, I met an agency with almost nothing. We had to wash our brains, to retrain ourselves to know our customers, document our processes, and work with standard operating procedures,” she said.
In 2022, NAFDAC achieved the World Health Organisation’s Maturity Level 3 certification, a benchmark for regulatory strength and reliability, and successfully retained it during reevaluation last year.
“We became the first country in Africa to achieve and sustain Maturity Level 3 reevaluation successfully. That is nation building,” she said.
Local innovation
The NAFDAC boss said deliberate regulatory policies and support systems have improved the quality and competitiveness of locally produced medicines.
Under her leadership, she said Nigeria now has two WHO-prequalified medicine manufacturers and its first WHO-prequalified medical device company.
“Before now, we had none. Today, we have prequalified medical devices and two prequalified medicine producers, proof that God did not create us differently. We can do it,” she said.
She added that the agency also developed a track-and-trace system used to monitor vaccines, narcotics, and newborn health commodities, making Nigeria the first in Africa and the second in the world to deploy such a tool nationwide.
“We used it to track all our vaccines during the pandemic. We’re now using it for narcotics and newborn health commodities,” she said.
Linking academia, industry
Mrs Adeyeye said NAFDAC is linking universities with industry to strengthen research and innovation.
Through partnerships with institutions such as the University of Lagos and the Federal University of Technology, Minna, staff can now pursue postgraduate studies while working full-time.
“Without academia, we cannot do research and development,” she said.
“Our staff now earn master’s and PhD degrees while serving full-time, that’s part of nation building.”
She urged professionals, manufacturers, and investors to see themselves as nation builders and to collaborate in expanding Nigeria’s pharmaceutical capacity.
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Local innovation, nation building
In his keynote address, Group Managing Director of FBN Holdings, Wale Oyedeji, said innovation and collaboration are essential to repositioning Nigeria’s pharmaceutical industry.
“Pharmaceutical innovation is many things, it is science, yes, but it is also business, governance, and above all, nation building,” Mr Oyedeji said.
He warned that Nigeria’s continued dependence on imported medicines, poor investment in research, and the migration of skilled professionals were undermining growth.
He urged pharmacists, researchers, and financiers to collaborate, invest in research and development, and adapt to new technologies such as artificial intelligence and data analytics.
“We must challenge practitioners to devote more than 0.2 per cent to R&D, focusing on what we have locally,” he said. “India looked within and transformed its healthcare system. We can do even better.”
President and Chairman, Governing Council, Nigeria Academy of Pharmacy, Lere Baale, said the Academy’s mission is to advance pharmaceutical science, ethics, and service to humanity.
Mr Baale said pharmacy remains central to national progress through its contribution to health security, industrial growth, and policy development.
He said the Academy is working to reposition Nigeria as a continental pharmaceutical innovation hub through research, biotechnology, digital health, and partnerships linking academia, government, and industry.
“Public perception defines professional destiny,” he said. “We are redefining pharmacy beyond the image of dispensing medicines to that of leadership in innovation, policy, and healthcare transformation.”
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