NAFDAC assures foreign investors of enabling business environment

The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), charged with the responsibility of safeguarding public health, has assured foreign investors of an enabling business environment that would benefit the food and drug sector.

The Acting Director General, NAFDAC, Mrs. Yetunde Oluremi Oni, gave the assurance at the Indian Professional Forum (IPF), with the theme: “Creating an enabling e-regulatory environment in NAFDAC – a panacea to ease of doing business,”

She said the agency is committed to ensuring a conducive business environment in Nigeria, as India accounts for 95 per cent of drugs imported into the country.

Oni said the agency incorporated computerisation in all its processes with the invention of its applications in order to make registration easy.

She said: “We have reviewed our processes and ensured that we have an e-regulatory environment- a panacea to doing business, where in the confines of your office or house you can begin your own registration processes, you can do everything on the ‘e’ platform. By so doing, we have been able to shorten our processes and procedures, and with e-lab also turning out timely result of analysis and with GMP inspection report satisfactory, we are able to review our documents and get market authorisation within 90 to 120 days.

“The app is also one of the tools we are deploying because when you register a product, it has a lifespan depending on the class of the product, and it is expected that you come and renew when the licence expires. With that app, we can trigger off from our offices and monitor the expiry date of products. When we get the alert, we write to that company to begin the process of registration so that there is no gap.”

In his remarks, the Executive Committee member, IPF, Kailash Kumar Gaggar, commended the effort of NAFDAC in building a sustainable partnership that would re-engineer the internal systems for greater transparency and quicker delivery without compromising the Vision and Mission of NAFDAC and the image of the Indian community in Nigeria.

He added that the aim of the forum was to encourage more frequent business and social links between opinion makers in Nigeria and Indian Professionals.