Nigeria is currently dealing with an unprecedented crisis of essential medicines including vaccines and medical equipment as big pharmaceutical companies have recently exited the African subcontinent. 

The exit of big pharmaceutical companies like GlaxoSmithKline, Bayer, Sanofi, and Moderna from Nigerian markets has resulted in steep pricing of antibiotics, other life-saving drugs, medicines, and medical equipment. 

The departure of big pharma is part of an overall exit of multinational companies and conglomerates from Nigeria in the past one year owing to steep inflation, high volatile exchange rate, downfall in manufacturing and overall poor performance of Naira against US Dollar.

The exit of big pharma has resulted in an exponential rise in the price of medicines, black marketing, hoarding, and adulteration of drugs and medical equipment. 

As the Nigerian government is trying to achieve normalcy and financial stability, it must seek to introduce regulations in the pharma sector to ensure citizens are not deprived of life-saving drugs and medical equipment. 

In such a scenario, blockchain technology holds potential to act as an antidote to the pressing challenges faced by the pharma industry in Nigeria. In this article, we will discuss the ways in which the decentralised ledger technology can help remove extra costs, introduce transparency and thwart black marketing and adulteration of drugs. 

The Pharma Crisis of Nigeria 

Recently, four big pharmaceutical companies have quit Nigerian markets. The most remarkable exit was of GlaxoSmithKline that had set its base in Nigeria back in 1972. GlaxoSmithKline announced that they will seek a third party distribution model in Nigeria to ensure regular supply of medicines and drugs. Similarly, Germany based Bayer also announced switching to a third party distribution model.

Sanofi Pharma, which makes life saving polio vaccines, also claimed that they are exiting Nigeria.

Experts suggest that the exit of big pharma from Nigeria is in tandem with the exit of other major MNCs like Nestle and Unilever from the country that is currently facing an economic crisis. 

The exit of big pharma saw citizens buying medicines of these companies at sky high rates from over the counter chemists and other black marketeers. Prices of medical equipment like inhalers for asthma patients and syringe-needles for injections have also increased substantially within a span of six months. 

Local Nigerian pharma plagued with corruption 

After the exit of big pharma, two players have entered the pharma market of Nigeria- local companies and export companies from India and Pakistan. 

The immediate challenge for the Nigerian government will be to thwart adulteration of drugs in local pharma companies and stop black marketing of medicines. 

According to research carried out by Okereke in 2021, the public health threat to Africa and Nigeria as a whole is increasing due to unregulated open drug markets, lack of pharmaceutical manufacturing capacity, counterfeit detection technologies and the law enforcement efforts.  

In 2023, a news report was published that claimed that adulterated and subpar medicines that were used to treat severe pneumonia in children have been connected to at least 169,271 deaths in the whole of Africa. The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control has issued recent notifications alerting consumers to the presence of contaminated cough syrups, antibiotics, and other children’s treatments on the market.

Can Blockchain Solve the Pharma Crisis? 

Blockchain is a decentralized, distributed ledger technology that records data passed across a system of multiple computers. Due to this advanced technology, data recorded are permanent and cannot be altered. 

Let’s look at how this technology can help solve the pharmaceutical crisis in Nigeria. 

Efficient Data Management

Real-time data exchange amongst various stakeholders, including producers, sellers, pharmacies, and regulators, is made possible by the decentralised nature of blockchain. To improve accountability and verification, every transaction or entry of information will be logged as a block, resulting in an unchangeable audit trail.

Drug inventories, deadlines for expiration, and batch identifications can be effectively tracked by this system, cutting down on waste and guaranteeing prompt refilling. 

By securely storing patient data and instruction histories on the blockchain, medication quality can be increased and pharmaceutical mistakes can be decreased.  Blockchain can also speed up the process of finding new drugs by enabling the safe exchange of information collected from clinical trials for study and development purposes.

Improvement in Clinical Trials 

With Blockchain, clinical trials in Nigeria can be more transparent and improve compliance. Patient records, protocols and information are stored effectively without having to worry about it getting lost or data  altered or deleted therefore ensuring integrity in all the process of the trial. 

Combating Counterfeit Drugs 

Blockchain technology presents a potent countermeasure against fake pharmaceuticals. Each medicine unit that is serialised is assigned a distinct, blockchain identifier, so establishing an uninterrupted chain of custody from producer to customer. 

This makes it possible to authenticate a medicine in immediate fashion at any stage of the distribution. Because of the cryptographic security and unchangeable ledger of blockchain, counterfeiting organisations find it very difficult to distribute bogus items without being discovered. 

India’s trial with blockchain in pharma

India’s public policy think tank NITI Aayog has introduced a blockchain pilot project in the pharma sector to check its efficiency. As per the think tank, the project involved use of blockchain technology to ensure that non adulterated medicines reach the hands of patients from local chemist to retailer to wholesaler to manufacturer. Under the pilot project, medicinal products were registered with a licence and time stamps and then introduced in the public ledger accessible to all stakeholders. Use of mobile application allowed all stakeholders to view the status of the medicinal package along with real time data access of ingredients, excipients, licence, temperature and cold storage availability of drugs. 

The pilot project by the Indian government showed that there was increased transparency, efficiency and no adulteration of medicines. 

Conclusion

Adopting blockchain in health and pharmaceutical industries could provide practical solutions to the many pressing issues faced by Nigerian citizens. As countries across the globe are adopting BCT in their governance, maybe it’s time for Nigerian government to use the technology for the greater good.