Dike Onwuamaeze
The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) has called for the strengthening of Nigerian pharmaceutical manufacturing capacity to build an efficient healthcare economy that creates jobs, attracts investment and emerges as a technology-intensive industry.
This call was made by the President of LCCI, Mr. Leye Kupoluyi, at the recent “LCCI Medical, Pharmaceuticals and Allied Services Group Symposium” with the theme “Transform Care: The Business of Healthcare in a Digital World.”
Kupoluyi said that the strengthening of local pharmaceutical manufacturing capacity was a critical dimension in the transformation of Nigeria’s healthcare delivery because Nigeria cannot achieve health security while remaining excessively dependent on imported medicines, active pharmaceutical ingredients, vaccines, diagnostics, and medical consumables.
He said: “Local pharmaceutical manufacturing is, therefore, simultaneously a health-security strategy, an industrial policy, and an investment opportunity,” he said.
The president of LCCI pointed out that local manufacturing should ultimately translate into greater availability, competitive pricing, and improved access to essential medicines for Nigerians.
He said restrictions on imported alternatives may inadvertently contribute to supply constraints and higher prices where domestic production capacity or competition is insufficient to meet demand.
“We, therefore, advocate for a periodic review of medicines affected by the Ceiling List based on verifiable domestic production capacity, market competition, medicine availability, and price movements.
“Appropriate mechanisms should also allow for temporary interventions where significant shortages or abnormal price increases occur.
“The goal must be to achieve local pharmaceutical manufacturing that is not only sustainable, but competitive and affordable.
“Protecting local industry and protecting access to medicines should not be mutually exclusive; our policies must deliberately achieve both,” the chamber said.
Kupoluyi also said that strengthening healthcare’s business environment would require predictable regulation, better infrastructure, sustainable financing, transparent procurement, stronger health insurance markets, appropriate public-private partnerships, and investment in human capital.
He said that healthcare is no longer simply a social service or a public-sector responsibility but one that is increasingly emerging as “a major economic sector, a technology-intensive industry, a source of employment and investment, and a critical determinant of productivity and national competitiveness.
“For Nigeria, the transformation of healthcare is not only about saving lives; it is also about building an efficient healthcare economy that can create jobs, attract investment, develop local industries, and improve human capital.”
He added: “the transformation of healthcare cannot be delivered by government alone.
“It requires a new partnership between government, the private sector, healthcare professionals, technology companies, financial institutions, academia, and development partners.
“The private sector must be recognized not merely as a provider of healthcare services but as an investor, innovator, employer, manufacturer, and partner in building Nigeria’s health system.”
Speaking in the vein in her keynote speech during the summit, the Group Chief Executive Officer, Iwosan Healthcare System Limited, Mrs. Fola Laoye, said that private healthcare providers are in need of coherent legal framework telemedicine and clinical artificial intelligence.
Laoye said: “We need three things. We need a coherent legal framework for telemedicine and clinical artificial intelligence, because at present we operate under a fragmented set of rules with no dedicated statute, and regulatory ambiguity in healthcare is ultimately paid for by patients.
“We need mandated data standards, so that interoperability is a requirement rather than a virtue.
“And we need the reimbursement pathway for digital modalities to be made operational, not merely permitted. Legislate the rails, and this sector will build the trains.”
She said that healthcare in Nigeria does not need cheap capital but correctly structured capital.
She advised healthcare providers to invest in the data before investing in the app because “your electronic medical record is not an IT expense. It is the foundation of your enterprise value, and one day it will be the first thing a serious buyer or lender examines.”