Group Seek Govt Intervention to Boost Local Drug Manufacturing

Oluchi Chibuzor 

With Inflation and exchange rate affecting crippling businesses, a women’s network group has called for the government to quickly intervene with funding to boost healthcare drug manufacturing in the country.

Speaking in Lagos during their 5th anniversary celebration, the CEO Healthgarde International, Mrs. Nneka Nwarueze, said despite the inflation headwinds and FX volatility they have weathered the storm to remain in business.

She said the prevailing economic condition on the network marketing space has significantly impacted purchasing power of consumers and is invariably affecting sales.

“Purchasing power has gone low. So they buy fewer, which also makes the sales lower and it does not help us who are bringing these products. Bringing products becomes virtually impossible by the exchange rate. And also, it has shrunk how much you can bring in. It has devastated the whole business. Well, you can see that most of the networks have closed. So many of them have closed,” she stated.

As such, according to her, there is a need to help indigenous firms seeking to produce locally rather than importing healthcare products into the country as many other groups have collapsed.

“They need assistance, either from the government or banks. So, if they intervene, intervene for real intervention, it makes things easier and the cost of some health care products will reduce. If it comes, it will help us to acquire the necessary machines because we need a lot of machines for us to start manufacturing locally,” she stated.

On her side, the COO, Healthgarde International, Lovelyn Bassey, said they would continue to grow their products footprint globally even though they have presence in seven countries.

According to her, “We literally launched and then there was a lockdown. And we’re still here, even with everything, global recession, inflation, everything. For the next stage of the company we just want to grow our product footprints around the world by manufacturing locally and partnership.”