BIO
Prof. Chimezie Anyakora
Professor Chimezie Anyakora holds a PhD in Pharmaceutical Chemistry and taught at the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Lagos for over a decade. He has also been involved in Public Health and Medicine Quality research. He has supervised various PhD students and published scores of papers in the field. He was named the University of Lagos researcher of the year in 2009 among many other awards. He was part of the international transition team for the African University of Science and Technology Abuja. He is in the editorial board of many international journals across the world. He had a stint at the Lagos Business School and during the period authored and co-authored several case studies. He founded the Centre for Advanced Research on Separation Science. He is a board member of African Membrane Society and also a member of the governing council the Institute for Industrial Technology. Prof. Chimezie Anyakora was the Nigeria Country Lead for the United States Pharmacopeia. Prior to that, he consulted for the Global Health Impact Program where he worked on Public Health projects across various African countries including Nigeria, Cameroon, Congo, Malawi, Ghana, Tanzania, Uganda, Congo Brazzaville and many more. He is very active at various public health regional initiatives on the continent. As the country lead of the United States Pharmacopeia and the Chief of Party of the Promoting the Quality of Medicines program in Nigeria, Professor Anyakora led the development and execution of the overall project strategy in Nigeria.
Among his many interventions in the pharmaceutical sector in Nigeria during the period include:
ISO Accreditation of five government Drug and Vaccine laboratories
Professor Anyakora led a team of technical experts to support the Federal Government of Nigeria in laboratory quality management systems including a series of technical training to National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) and National Institute of Pharmaceutical Research and development (NIPRD) staff which led to ISO 17025 accreditation of four labs in NAFDAC and one in NIPRD. A massive capacity building of staff of these institutions was carried out in the process.
GMP Roadmap for the Nigerian Pharma Industry
One of the biggest achievements of the pharmaceutical sector in the last five years was the GMP roadmap of the industry. This was conceived and led by Professor Anyakora with the help of his team. This project involved a thorough audit of all the pharmaceutical manufacturers and developing a plan for addressing the identified gaps. The aim of the exercise was to improve the overall quality of local manufacturing and put Nigeria in a leading role in the pharmaceutical manufacturing across Africa.
Development and Adoption of Nigerian Quality Assurance policy
The National Quality Assurance policy was developed in 2015 under the leadership of Professor Anyakora. He led a team of government officials and consultants in a series of consultative engagements that led to the finalization of the document. The National council on health adopted this document in 2016 in Sokoto State. Emanating from this policy document, several other documents to lay a solid foundation for quality assurance in the country were developed. These include two other guidelines, six quality manuals and a total of 523 standard operating procedures.
Development and Adoption of Pharmaceutical Quality System curriculum
As a way of sustaining quality assurance system in the country, Professor Anyakora led a team of academics, regulators, and practitioners to review and update Pharmaceutical Quality system curriculum with the aim of making the graduates ready for the current market job requirement. Several schools of Pharmacy are already using this in Nigeria.
Massive Capacity building for local manufacturers
In the last five years under the leadership of Professor Anyakora, a massive capacity building effort was delivered to the local manufacturers. This involved several trainings and hand holding support to local manufacturers. This has led to the recognition of the quality of manufacturing of a number of Nigerian companies globally, making them able to supply medicines for public health interventions beyond Nigeria.
Building a strong post-marketing surveillance system
Professor Anyakora was instrumental in building and strengthening the post-marketing surveillance system in Nigeria. Working with a team from the NAFDAC and other technical experts, he led the development and implementation of quality surveys of medicines across all the states of Nigeria. The results of these surveys have led to a drastic reduction in the level of substandard medicines in the country.