The National Institute for Pharmaceutical Research and Development, NIPRD says it is embarking on local production of medical and pharmaceutical products, to improve access to healthcare in the country.
The institute’s Director-General Obi Adigwe who announced this in Abuja said the production of the products would also boost socio-economic growth in the country.
According to Adigwe, the country is blessed with numerous medicinal plants with huge medical and pharmaceutical potentials that were not being exploited. He said the institute had already produced a sickle cell drug which would soon be in the market.
The Director General explained that institute had access to research that was ignored in the past, which the institute would now start transforming into finished products. He said that the focus was to achieve a remarkable improvement in healthcare and also improve the socio-economic conditions of Nigerians.
He added that institute found out that most of the eucalyptuses in the market is imported, but Kaduna has more than ten thousand hectares of it, and NIPRD has the technology to process it.
