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FDB to expand local pharmaceutical
manufacturing base
Accra, Jan. 15, Ghanadot/GNA -
The Food and Drugs Board (FDB) is to expand the list of
products restricted for local manufacturing to enable local
pharmaceutical industries to export to other countries.
The list would move from 13 to 40 to include simple
straightforward mixtures like vitamins and some anti-biotics,
which could be manufactured locally and also, reduce the
rate of importation of those drugs.
Mr. Emmanuel Kyeremanteng Agyarko, Chief Executive Officer
of FDB said this when he addressed the opening of a four-day
training in Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) for quality
control and production managers of local pharmaceutical
companies in Accra on Tuesday.
The GMP training, attended by 64 participants from 35 local
pharmaceutical industries and supported by the World Health
Organisation (WHO) is to ensure improvement in GMP
compliance level, ensure consistency in production and
quality standards in pharmaceutical productions in the
country.
Participants would be taken through analytical method,
validation, qualification and collaboration of equipment,
process validation and stability studies.
Dr Kyeremanteng Agyarko noted that the local manufacturers
had the capacity to meet the demands in the sub-region with
quality assurance since Ghana was the next to Nigeria whose
production for local manufacturing was 100.
"We need to take this courageous decision to serve as a
challenge, raise the status and empower the local
pharmaceutical industries to meet international and world
standards".
He noted that other, countries in the sub-region were
importing certain drugs from Ghana and Nigeria and urged
Ghanaian industries to rise to meet the challenge, "so we
will all stop importing drugs from the western world."
The yardstick to be used to measure the level of quality of
pharmaceutical products for these industries would be GMP
compliance.
Mr Kyeremanteng Agyarko urged the local manufacturers to put
in place the needed equipment to enable them meet the GMP
standards.
Ms Sophia Twum-Barimah, Public Affairs Officer of WHO read
the speech on behalf of Dr Joachim Saweka, WHO Country
Representative said the increasing globalisation of commerce
and trade, and the merging of pharmaceutical companies were
in line with the international production and called for
international norms and standards for medicines to be of
paramount importance.
She noted that medicines were relevant to priority health
needs and public needs, high standards of quality and safety
and therefore efficacy of medicines must be ensured whilst
reliable systems of medicines regulation and legislation
were adhered to.
"In the drive towards increasing profits, exuberant
promotion and increasing demand for medicines, we need to
protect the population to ensure that they benefit from
proper access to the right medicines, medicines that are
safe, of the best quality and medicines that have been
prescribed in optimum conditions".
Ms Tuwm-Barimah pledged WHO's continuous support for the
capacity building of the local industries for more local
manufacturers to be pre-qualified for the production of
medicines to serve the priority health needs for both local
and international people.
Mr Theophilus Corquaye, former Chief Executive of FDB who
chaired, reiterated the need to extend the local
manufacturing list and the need for local manufacturers to
be GMP compliance.
He suggested that the local industries be categorized and
graded in the order of competence to promote competition,
quality and efficiency.
GNA
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