May & Baker partners Nigeria’s NIPRD to manufacture sickle cell drug

May & Baker Nigeria Plc., one of the leading drug manufacturers in Nigeria, has signed an agreement with the National Institute for Pharmaceutical Research and Development (NIPRD) for commercial production of anti-sickle cell drug, NAPRISAN.

Nnamdi Okafor, managing director/CEO May & Baker explained that the company took on the task of producing NIPRISAN to provide succor to many homes who have been weighed down by the agony of sickle cell anaemia.

“We expect this product to be a commercial success and a leading product of our company as we intend to give it all the attention required” Okafor said.

The agreement was signed recently in Abuja by Nnamdi Okafor, Managing Director/CEO May & Baker and Olabayo Kunle, Acting Director-General of NIPRD, in the presence of Isaac Adesola, Nigeria’s minister of health.

The Federal Executive Council recently ratified the memorandum of understanding between NIPRD and May & Baker leading to the eventual signing of the commercialisation agreement.

NIPRISAN is an anti-sickling formula discovered by NIPRD researchers several years back. Its commercialisation in Nigeria is expected to substantially relieve the sickle cell disease burden, which is responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of people in the country yearly that has brought agony to many families.

NIPRISAN is one of the few successful formulations that has been acknowledged to treat the sickle cell anaemia.

With its commercial production May & Baker will not only have added to her large basket of successful quality medicines but would set the blaze in encouraging local research into various medicines.

This is expected to encourage researchers to do more work that would throw up local medicaments for the disease burden in Africa.