SYGEN Pharmaceuticals and ORx Pharmaceuticals (Canada) have formed a new joint venture, Sygen-ORX Biosciences, with the intention of addressing local health needs by leveraging on innovation adapted to our environment.
The joint venture development, with academia, the private sector, and the government on board, intends to address local health needs by creating medicines based on pharmacogenetics and genetics that are within the reach of Nigerians while working with local companies.
Chief Executive Officer of Sygen Pharmaceuticals, Charles Ogunwuyi, speaking at a media briefing to announce the birth of the new joint venture, Sygen-ORX Biosciences in Lagos, declared that the Sygen Pharmaceuticals commercialisation expertise with ORx Pharmaceuticals (Canada) advanced research and development capabilities is intended to create impactful solutions in the continent.
Ogunwuyi added that local research and development and drug discovery based on pharmacogenetics is critical to the development of improved formulations of generic medicines, advancing innovative drug discovery programmes and reducing costs, and increasing access to high-quality generic medicines in Africa.
“The joint venture company will focus on the development of improved formulations of generic medicines, focussing on products that have already received regulatory approval and have achieved substantial commercial success.
“It is to advance innovative drug discovery programmes into the regional and global pharmaceutical markets and reduce costs and increase access to high-quality generic medicines in Africa,” he said.
Chief Executive Officer of ORx Pharmaceuticals (Canada), Dr Alexander MacGregor, said the partnership was leveraging Oryx’s intellectual property that was created over the last 30 years to develop effective and affordable medicines for Nigerians and other African countries.
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“We have a suite of active pharmaceutical ingredients (IPAs) that we use to liberally develop a range of drugs without having to labour over things. One of the impediments to drug development is time. It’s like developing a recipe for making a variety of soups. So intellectual property-based allows you to leverage platform technologies.
“So, in the next three to four years you should expect to see innovative drugs within the essential medicines category right that are more affordable and are more effective for people in Nigeria and in Africa.
“Most of the drugs that we have here in Nigeria and Africa were not really developed with us in mind, and the genetics of Africans are different from the genetics of people in different parts of the world. So, it only makes it more important that you develop drugs based on our own genetics and social environmental factors.
“That will only not make it more effective, but it means you end up using lower dosage forms even as you end up localising that industry and making it less dependent on foreign importation. That in itself is going to be a major impact from a socio-economic and health standpoint.”
Earlier, Director General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, Professor Mojisola Adeyeye, described the joint venture as phenomenal in line with NAFDAC’s agenda to ensure Nigeria becomes less addicted to foreign-made products.
According to her, “We started with the manufacturers, that there must be a change in paradigm to ensure that we become less addictive to foreign-made products. That is what we started six years ago. In terms of telling ourselves that we can do it, to look inward.
“We are really embracing that paradigm change. The changes we are observing now in the industry are a reflection of the changes that are taking place in our country. If we are not strong ourselves, we cannot guide the manufacturers on how to meet international standards; how to use the quality management system approaches to ensure that the products that our people are getting are of quality, safe, and efficacious.”