President of Nigeria Academy of Pharmacy (NAPHARM), Prince Julius Adelusi-Adeluyi, has called for producing active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) for drug manufacturing to ensure medicine security.
He stated this at the investiture of new fellows into the Academy yesterday in Lagos.
20 pharmacists were formally inducted into the ranks of the Academy including the proprietor of Afe Babalola University, Aare Afe Babalola.
Adelusi-Adeluyi noted that the issue of how well Nigeria has striven to imbibe the lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic, saying this is worth examining, because among several others, a core lesson which that pandemic teaches us is the imperative of medicine security particularly as it relates to local manufacturing of medicines.
According to him, “for a country with the hydrocarbon resources that Nigeria boasts of, we must commit to producing API for drug manufacturing rather than relying endlessly on importing these same raw materials.
“Pharmacists need to enlighten the political leadership including today’s presidential aspirants on this issue and painstakingly interrogate them on their plans for utilising Nigeria’s Oil & Gas deposits.
“The political leadership needs to better appreciate why a petrochemical industry is critical to Nigeria and pharmacists have a role not only to continue to drive enlightenment, but also participate actively in the electoral process.”
Adelusi-Adeluyi stated that, the Nigeria Academy of Pharmacy has continues to look forward to the commencement of the Dangote Refinery and its associated petrochemical plant with elation.
He called for clear imperative for pharmacists, pharmaceutical scientists and medical professionals in the field of research and development in developing the country, to increasingly tap into the world of Big Data, Artificial intelligence and Machine Learning .
He also called on the government to help create the right environment that makes meaningful research possible.
He emphasised that government can help to create a level playing field for all by providing free and open access to big data, saying that it could help to deliberately, through incentives and subsidies, attract technology incubators in the AI space.
He added that, “as we witnesses in the financial and fintech space, there is considerable potential for AI in the pharmaceutical space and that potential can translate not only to the relief of pain and suffering from disease but also to economic growth and development.”
