Dutch Consulate, PharmAccess Launch Health Market Study Report

The Netherlands Consulate in Lagos in a coordinated effort with PharmAccess Foundation has launched a study on the health market in Nigeria.

The event which held on Friday in Lagos, is a follow-up to the study conducted in 2015.

The market study report highlights the state and business opportunities in the health sector post covid with prominence on investment prospects especially for Dutch Life-Science-Health (LSH) businesses and other health market players both in government and the private sector.

The event was declared open, by the Netherlands Consul-General Lagos, Mr. Michel Deelen.

In his welcome address, he described the objective of the Consulate’s investment in the Nigerian health sector, saying: “We do this to showcase potential sources of funding for the Nigerian health market to organizations in the public and private sectors. The report includes an array of business cases that were developed to highlight prospects for Nigeria and the Netherlands to collaborate on projects that would attract significant investment to the Nigerian health sector.”

In an opening address, Her Excellency, Dr. Eniola Olaitan Ajayi, the Nigerian ambassador to the Kingdom of the Netherlands, lauded the Dutch Consulate for its unwavering support in enhancing public-private partnerships and investment in the country, particularly in the healthcare sector.

She also commended PharmAccess Foundation for the meticulous research that was carried out to birth the report. “A special thanks to the Kingdom of the Netherlands and to PharmAccess Foundation for their genuine interest in advancing courses that would have impact in Nigeria for a long time. It is not easy to get data that represents the needs of over 217 million Nigerians. This is a great start and we encourage everyone to do everything they can to see that this yields the maximum results” she said.

Mrs. Njide Ndili, Country Director, PharmAccess Foundation, also delivered a brief address in which she emphasized the impact that PharmAccess has achieved owing to the generous support of the Foreign Affairs Ministry of the Netherlands, through the Dutch Consulate.

She noted, “Thanks to the financing and support from the Dutch government, we were able to catalyze the healthcare sector in Nigeria through our interventions on demand-side financing, supply-side quality improvement, research to support policy transformation, digital innovations, and access to finance for health SMEs.

“The research we conducted in 2015 categorized how Nigeria’s health sector is organized and this report is a follow up to highlight areas that require investments. The Medical Credit Fund (MCF) of PharmAccess Foundation anchored this study highlighting the major gaps and investment opportunities that lie within the sector.”

A high-level presentation session that corroborated the main conclusions of the previously carried out health market analysis was also delivered at the event.

The presentation highlighted 10 business cases for investment to strengthen the health sector. They include: Revitalization of dysfunctional PHCs, ICT Integration of NHIA Processes, Deployment of Solar Energy Systems Across Target PHCs, Telemedicine, Medical Equipment Leasing & Maintenance, Domesticated Vaccine Production, Pharmaceutical Import Opportunities, Turnkey Health Infrastructure Advisory Opportunities, Local Production of LLINs, and Cold Chain Storage & Logistics.

Present at the event were a number of significant participants, including the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA), the Private Sector Health Alliance of Nigeria (PSHAN), Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), as well as investors, healthcare professionals, regulators, and MedTech startups.

Giving the closing remarks, the Deputy Consul General of the Netherlands in Lagos, Ms. Leonie Van Der Stijl, expressed her pleasure at the successful report launch of the market study, which had been ongoing since 2015.

She also urged everyone to utilize the report as it would lead to significant investments in the country.

“This report opens doors of investment opportunities, and it’s our responsibility to match-make them by bringing in multiple stakeholders to step into the sector and be there at the right time,” she said in her closing statement. I’d like to take this opportunity to beckon everyone present to inform others of the digital availability of this report as that is the only way the report would gain traction and yield results.”.

PharmAccess Foundation is an international not-for-profit organization established in 2001 that operates in Africa, pioneering innovative approaches to strengthen the healthcare sector. Its goal is to improve access to quality healthcare, especially for low-income groups in Sub-Saharan Africa.