Regulatory agencies and experts in medical and pharmaceutical fields have expressed concern over the setbacks and challenges of clinical trials in Africa, especially Nigeria. They made their concern known during the maiden edition of the All Africa Clinical Trial Summit on ‘Next Frontier for Growth and Revolution in Clinical Trials: Africa is Ready,’ held on Tuesday in Lagos.

 

During the summit organised by the Association for Good Clinical Practice in Nigeria, in collaboration with the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, the experts engaged brainstormed on how Africa can improve the volume and quality of local clinical programmes and integrate such into the global clinical programmes.

 

They also considered how partnerships between African regulatory authorities and private sector actors from the medical and pharmaceutical research community could solve Africa’s poor performance in the global drug arena.

 

The Acting Director-General of NAFDAC, Mrs. Yetunde Oni, said it was high time medical experts joined regulatory agencies to make Africa an attractive place for clinical trial activities.

 

She said that the growth and revolution of clinical trial in Africa was a necessity for combating health challenges in some parts of the country.

 

“The African continent has been, in the past few years, faced with challenges of combating threats of disease outbreaks.

 

“The Ebola virus outbreak exposed the lack of capacity in many countries to provide oversight for clinical trials for all medical products; but, simultaneously, it showed the contribution of the African Vaccine Regulatory Forum to building expertise and facilitated the timely review of candidate vaccines.

 

“This swift pace of product development has challenged regulatory systems globally, especially those of resource-constrained sub-Saharan African countries, to come to terms with the reality of pooling their resources and attracting medical research to the continent,” Oni stated.

 

Chairperson, AGCPN, Prof. Ifeoma Okoye, lamented the dearth of sustainable platforms for health innovation in Africa, adding that the continent had failed to strategically position itself to dominate the industry.

 

She said, “Africans at home and in the Diaspora have come to the conclusion that the low volume of drug research and development (including clinical research) is counter-productive to the vision for a healthy Africa.

 

“As has been widely recognised, the health status of the African population remains behind that of populations in Europe and North America, as well as many other developing regions with similar capacity.

 

“There is overwhelming evidence that demonstrates that meeting Africa’s development goals in health care access requires that we build sustainable platforms for health innovation within Africa.

 

“Such platforms cannot gain root in the continent if Africa is disconnected from the over-arching global clinical trial enterprise.”