Pharmaceutical Associations/Stakeholders Collaborate To Improve Distribution Chain, Check Fake Drugs

LAGOS – Pharmaceutical practitioners, associations and stakeholders have collaborated to improve the distribution chain of pharmaceutical products, and check the distribution of fake and adulterated drugs in the country.
 
Pharmaceutical Wholesalers and Distributors Association of Nigeria (PWDAN), organisers of the event, during its first annual conference in Lagos on Wednesday, with the theme, “Pharmaceutical Supply Chain In Nigeria – QUO VADIS ( Latin word for “where are you going”),  brought together players in the industry with the purpose of looking beyond profit-making through collaborative efforts, improve the distribution chain and check the distribution of fake drugs.
 
 In his welcome address, Ernest Okafor, chairman of PWDAN, noted that they brought together stakeholders in the Pharmaceutical supply chain in Nigeria, the regulators, the National Agency for Food Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) and the Pharmacists Council of Nigeria (PCN), manufacturers, importers etcetera, to ventilate on solutions to challenges that plague the pharmaceutical sub-sector of the economy.
 
The chairman of the occasion, Prof. Lere Baale, Chief Executive Officer, Business School Netherlands, in his speech said that it is not enough to have a good product but the distribution chain is very key even as he commended the organisers of the event for bringing the various stakeholders together to rob minds on the important issue.
 
 
The keynote address was delivered by Solomon Aigbavboa, Managing Director/Chief Research Officer Sonedis Nigeria, who enumerated the challenges in the Pharmaceutical Supply Chains (PSC) over the years, stressing that the challenges have impacted negatively the performance of the chains.
 
According to him, the challenges include but are not limited to stock-outs and product shortages; fake and counterfeit products; product expiration, corruption, political will etcetera.
 
He said that the pharmaceutical supply chains in both private and public sectors still face several challenges, as a result, they have remained weak and ineffective, threatening the overall success, efficiency and effectiveness of the various chemotherapies and outcomes of the healthcare delivery systems. “Ultimately, the overall health system fails in its ability to adequately cater for