NAN-H-10
Pharmaceuticals
By Babatunde Ogunrinde
Lagos, Dec. 6, 2016 (NAN) Olumide Akintayo, Lead Consultant, Cross and Christian Consulting, on Tuesday said that capacity building would give practitioners in the pharmaceutical industry proper direction to do the business according to law.
Akintayo said this on the sidelines of a two-day capacity building workshop, tagged “Coordinating Wholesale Centres (CWC)’’ with more than 300 health practitioners in attendance in Lagos.
Cross and Christian Consulting is the outfit coordinating the ongoing workshop which began on Monday at the NAN Media Centre, Lagos.
CWCs are zonal centres where practitioners in pharmaceuticals industry, including those in open drugs market are brought under one regulatory platform to ensure quality of drugs on sale.
Akintayo told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that the open market has been greatly infiltrated with fake drugs by unscrupulous practitioners, noting, however, that there were still some genuine ones.
“The essence of the exercise is to coordinate people who operate in what is dubbed `open drugs market’, into a regulatory platform to modulate endeavours within the realm of common sense.
“It is simply aimed at training drugs practitioners with the sole aim of achieving good pharmaceutical and responsible companies.
“So, with this platform, we can register everybody within the purview of the law and have a good watch on those doing the business of Open Market Pharmaceuticals Company.
“We are targeting only those who are ready to submit themselves to law and jettison those who are dealing with drugs in the prohibited areas.
“The Pharmaceutical Council of Nigeria, the Police, the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) are on hand to train the participants.
“This workshop is like an expose into the entire regulatory requirement to secure genuine people and to easily identify those doing illegal distribution and sales of drugs,’’ Akintayo said.
He said that with the existence of the CWC the open drugs market will easily fizzle out.
“So, we have designed a platform which is the CWC to secure genuine practitioners and anybody who does not join the platform will be vulnerable and will be dealt with by the law.
“The workshop will also have financial experts, pharmaceuticals practitioners teaching the players to have knowledge of the law, raising money and the dos and don’ts of the business,’’ Akintayo said. (NAN)
BAO/AOM/PDE
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(Edited by Abdullahi Mohammed/Peter Ejiofor)