The impacts of Drug Importation Regulation on Local Pharmaceutical manufacturers in Lagos Nigeria

Abstract

The thesis aims at evaluating the impacts of drug Importation regulation on local pharmaceutical manufacturers in Lagos Nigeria by carrying out a questionnaire-based surrey and zoom interviews for quantitative and qualitative analysis respectively. In achieving the objectives of the study, the knowledge, awareness, and drawbacks faced by the local pharmaceutical industry were appropriately considered in order to derive at effective recommendations to improve local drug manufacturing in Lagos Nigeria. Both groups (local drug manufacturers/importers) in the pharmaceutical industry were compared to derive at their perspective on the impacts of drug importation regulations on their business. A total of 77 out of the 117 participated actively in the survey, of whom they combine pharmaceutical importation and local pharmaceutical manufacturing. Interesting, 83% of the participants admitted that the importation regulations in Nigeria are outdated and ineffective/inconsistent and have impacted negatively to the growth of the industry. However, an overwhelmingly majority of the local drug manufactures/importers also attributed the frequent taxation from state and non-state regulators as a major draw backs to local drug manufacturing that have yielded to the 25% capacity production of the Nigeria local drug manufacturing. Furthermore, most of the respondent admitted that the lack of basic infrastructures like power, road networks, water etc. from the Nigeria government have drastically discouraged local drug manufacturing and encouraging drug importation chiefly from India. On the contrary, majority of local manufacturers/importers agreed that the foreign CMOs have widen the scope of pharmaceuticals available in Nigeria and encouraged the circulation of fake and substandard drugs and affected the growth of the local manufacturing negatively. In conclusion, the local manufacturers recommended that the growth of the depends majorly onnthe contributions of the government in providing soft loans, shutting down the open drug market in Nigeria, implementation of the drug regulations, setting up a vision for the industry, provision of tax breaks, investment in R&D, reviewing of the importation regulations to encourage local drug manufacturers, and lastly government should patronize made in Nigeria drug products.