NAFDAC Closes Six Companies over Substandard Drugs

NAFDAC Closes Six Companies over Substandard Drugs

By Onyebuchi Ezigbo

The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has shut down six local manufacturers of finished pharmaceutical products for producing substandard pharmaceutical products.

A statement issued yesterday by the Resident Media Consultant, Mr. Sayo Akintola, quoted the Director General of NAFADC, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, as saying that the pharmaceutical companies were shut down following a nationwide surveillance on their manufacturing activities.

She expressed dismay that in spite of appropriate notification the companies failed to meet minimum Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) standards in line with extant requirements which are required to assure the quality, safety and efficacy of pharmaceutical products.

The NAFDAC DG ordered that the companies remain shut until the respective GMP compliances are met.

She said the current measures are to serve as deterrents to all local and foreign manufacturers who may not want to comply with basic GMP requirements and join the Agency in its renewed campaign to rid the country of SF medicines.

“NAFDAC in its current effort and relentless drive to address the challenges of Substandard and Falsified (SF) medicines in Nigeria recently blacklisted a foreign manufacturer of finished pharmaceutical products (FPPs) and delisted its local representative for gross violation of NAFDAC extant laws and regulations,” she said.

Adeyeye however, noted that “NAFDAC owes the nation the onerous responsibility of safeguarding public health and will not back track in ensuring that only medicines that are safe, efficacious and of good quality are accessible to the Nigerians.’’

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