Lagos To Establish Essential Medicines Agency

Lagos State government has announced plans to establish the Lagos State Essential Medicines Agency (LSEMA) to ensure seamless management and distribution of essential medicines within the state.

The state commissioner for Health, Professor Akin Abayomi, who disclosed this during the ministry’s 2024 Ministerial Press Briefing in Lagos explained that the establishment of LSEMA represents a pivotal initiative aimed at transforming the management and distribution of essential medicines, in line with the Federal Government’s mandate for every state to set up a Drug Management Agency.

“The establishment of a Drug Management Agency is designed to address significant challenges in the supply chain by introducing a structured and technologically driven approach to the procurement, storage and distribution of health commodities,” he said.

Abayomi highlighted several benefits of the agency to include robust regulation of medicine flow, improved access to quality drugs, enhanced health planning data and increased internal revenue generation through efficient drug sales, noting that the application of economies of scale during bulk purchases would help maintain stable prices for essential medicines regardless of economic fluctuations.

 “We are now at the stage where we are beginning to track the need for a medical drug agency for Lagos State to make sure we control the prices of drugs with economies of scale and bulk purchasing, improve the quality of drugs in Lagos by providing additional quality assessment of the drugs that are brought into Lagos, and to improve the efficiency of movement of drugs through our facilities so that we will never have a situation of stock out,” Abayomi added.