LEADERSHIP Awards: Dr Stella Chinyelu Okoli Is CEO Of The Year 2023

While the Nigerian pharmaceutical industry faces numerous obstacles, including the threat posed by counterfeit drugs, drug importation and exorbitant drug prices, Dr Stella Chinyelu Okoli has made herself available as a low-hanging fruit in addressing these problems in the past 40 years. 

As she succinctly puts it, “Nigeria’s major challenge is the country’s vulnerability and over-dependence on importation of medicines. Nigeria has no business allowing importation of drugs that can be produced locally because all we are doing is importing poverty.”

The story started to change when Dr Okoli founded Emzor, a pharmaceutical company, in 1977 as a modest pharmacy located in Somolu, Lagos State, under the name Emzor Chemists Limited. The goal has been to ensure all Nigerians have access to high-quality healthcare at a reasonable price.

Over the years, Emzor Pharmaceutical has developed into one of Nigeria’s top producers and distributors of pharmaceutical goods, offering more than 120 products in the areas of analgesic, anti-malaria, vitamin/haematinic/multivitamin supplements, and anti-helminthic, among others.

Nigerians recently acknowledged her efforts in the wake of GSK’s departure from the country after more than 51 years, leading to nearly 300 per cent increase in drug sales in just one year. 

According to some of the citizens who shared their thoughts with LEADERSHIP, local pharmaceutical manufacturing companies are the lifesavers, for enabling them to keep taking life-saving medications. They thank firms like Emzor that produces drugs comparable to GSK’s.

Despites this achievement, Dr Okoli is not sitting idly by; her next move is to begin sourcing active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) from within the country. The president of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN), Cyril Usifoh, told this newspaper that this is extremely crucial because, without APIs, drugs cannot be produced. Usifoh claimed that all pharmaceutical companies in Nigeria import APIs to produce their drugs locally.

But Dr Okoli is about to change that, as she has invested a significant amount of money to establish a factory that can produce APIs locally. “If she succeeds, she will be the first pharmaceutical manufacturer to produce APIs locally,” the president of PSN stated.

Born on July 30, 1944, in Kano State to Felix Ebelechukwu and Margaret Modebelu, Dr Stella Okoli attended All Saints Primary School in Onitsha from 1954 to 1959, Ogidi Girls’ Secondary School in Ogidi from 1959 to1964, and Federal Science School in Lagos from 1964 to 1966.

She moved to Great Britain to continue her studies, graduating from the College of Bradford as a pharmacist. Okoli also holds a master’s degree in Bio-pharmacy from the College of London, Chelsea College. She is also a graduate of Lagos Business School, Harvard Business School in Boston and I.E.S.E. Business School in Barcelona, Spain.

After her education in Britain, Okoli began working as a ward/ clinical pharmacist at Middlesex Hospital in London and later briefly as a pharmacist at Boots Drugstore, UK. On her return to Nigeria, she worked briefly at Massey Children Hospital in Lagos before joining Park Davies Nigeria Limited (now Pharma-Deko Plc).

Dr Okoli has served in various capacities, including as a member of the Economic Summit of Nigeria and the Health Matters Advisory Board of Nigeria, Vice President of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria and of the Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA). 

Previously, she was chairperson of the Pharmaceutical Manufacturer Group and the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN). In 2010, she became a non-executive director of Guaranty Trust Bank. She is also a member of the Nigeria Industrial Policy and Competitiveness Advisory Council.

Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, awarded her an honorary doctorate degree in Business Administration in 2011 and, the following year, she was honoured with the Women of Distinction and Lifetime Achievers award at the ThisDay Annual Awards. In 2016, she was named Business Person of the Year at the Sun Newspaper Awards.