Oluwatobi Adu 
Director-General, NAFDAC, Prof Mojisola Adeyeye and Managing Director/CEO, SKG Pharma Limited and former Chairman PMG/MAN, Dr Okey Akpa at Nigeria Pharma Manufacturers’ Expo
ABUJA, Nigeria – Nigeria’s lack of local vaccine manufacturing is preventing the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) from attaining the World Health Organisation’s highest regulatory maturity level for vaccine lot release, the agency’s Director-General, Prof Mojisola Adeyeye, has said.
Adeyeye made the disclosure on Sunday at the 8th Nigeria Pharma Manufacturers’ Expo in Lagos, where she urged international partners to support the completion of vaccine manufacturing facilities in Nigeria.
She said NAFDAC had met eight of the nine requirements for full benchmarking, with vaccine lot release remaining the outstanding requirement.
According to Adeyeye, Nigeria has the regulatory capacity to meet the World Health Organisation’s Maturity Level 4 requirement but needs functional local vaccine manufacturing to complete the process. “We want to call on our international partners that have been of tremendous help. Without them we wouldn’t have been here. I want to challenge them to contribute, to fill and finish Modular Vaccine manufacturing so that we can get our Vaccine Lot Release,” she said.
The NAFDAC chief said Nigeria had previously manufactured vaccines and needed to rebuild its domestic production capacity to strengthen health security and reduce dependence on imports. “It’s high time we went back to vaccine manufacturing,” she said.
Adeyeye added that NAFDAC had already estimated the cost of establishing the capacity required to achieve vaccine lot release.
The NAFDAC director-general also highlighted progress in strengthening pharmaceutical manufacturing in Nigeria.
She said the agency’s Good Manufacturing Practice roadmap had included compliance audits of more than 165 pharmaceutical companies over an eight-month period.
According to her, Nigeria recorded a 70 per cent reduction in imports of products covered by the 5 Plus 5 and Ceiling Initiative between 2021 and 2025, as domestic manufacturers increased production.
The development, she said, demonstrated the potential of local pharmaceutical manufacturing when supported by appropriate regulation and investment.
The two-day Nigeria Pharma Manufacturers’ Expo attracted 132 companies from Nigeria and countries including the United States, China, India, Rwanda, France and Germany.
Chairman of the Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Group of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, Oluwatosin Jolayemi, called for the extension of the 2024 Presidential Executive Order on pharmaceutical manufacturing.
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Hope Ajayi 
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