Emzor Pharmaceutical Industries Limited has once again reaffirmed its commitment to the growth and development of local pharmaceutical manufacturing, aimed at strengthening health resilience across African countries.
The Executive Director of the company, Mrs. Uzoma Ezeoke, made this known at the ECOWAS @50 sub-regional forum held recently in Lagos.
Speaking as a panelist at the forum themed “Regional Integration: Gateway to Peace and Security, Trade and Investment in the ECOWAS Sub-Region – Achievements, Challenges, Solutions, and Opportunities”, Ezeoke presented a paper titled “Local Manufacturing Equals Medicine Security.”
She highlighted the firm’s strategic interventions in addressing challenges limiting access to life-saving and affordable healthcare—particularly drugs and medical essentials—across Africa.
According to her, its efforts towards ensuring self-sufficiency in medicine and capacity building in Africa include the production of over 160 products across five factories, employment of more than 2,000 staff, and a wide network of distributors.
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She noted that the firm’s Sagamu plants, built to world-class standards, currently export products to between 23 and 27 African countries, including direct exports to Liberia and Sierra Leone.
“In addition to this, we have a strong domestic presence across the 36 states of Nigeria and the Federal Capital Territory, with over 250 distributors nationwide,” Ezeoke added.
She further explained that Emzor’s Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (API) plant in Sagamu, Ogun State, underscores the company’s innovative and forward-thinking approach to tackling Africa’s drug sufficiency challenges—especially in reducing maternal and infant mortality rates.
Ezeoke stated that the API facility is designed to significantly reduce drug importation—one of the primary sources of substandard drugs in Africa—minimize foreign exchange dependence, enhance local capacity, increase access to quality healthcare, and contribute to GDP growth across the continent.
She emphasised the firm’s focus on product innovation and quality, which strategically addresses gaps in the healthcare system such as research, development, and the local production of life-saving medications.
She assured that it would continue to play a leading role in the pharmaceutical industry across sub-Saharan Africa.
Also speaking at the event, the President and Chairman of Council of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), Mr. Gabriel Idahosa, stressed that regional integration is crucial to West Africa’s economic advancement. He reiterated LCCI’s commitment to promoting trade, investment, and security as essential foundations for peace.
Delivering a speech titled “Regional Integration as Economic Pillar,” Idahosa noted that political instability and security challenges in parts of West Africa, including past civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone, have stunted growth. He observed that Nigeria and other countries in the region must prioritize peace to enable economic development.
He called for continued regional peacekeeping efforts to address these issues and stated that although intra-regional trade within ECOWAS grew from $4.5 billion in 1979 to $17.6 billion in 2023, it still accounts for only 12% of the region’s total trade.
Idahosa highlighted that the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) could boost intra-African trade by over 50% by 2030 and that the proposed ECOWAS single currency could streamline trade within the sub-region.
In his keynote address, the President of the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development (EBID), Dr. George Donkor, outlined the bank’s strategic role in financing regional infrastructure such as transportation, energy, and ICT.
He added that the bank supports the West African Power Pool to enhance energy connectivity, promotes industrialisation and MSME support for financial inclusion, and encourages public-private partnerships to derisk investments.
The summit brought together key stakeholders from across West Africa to explore strategies for accelerating regional integration through health, education, agriculture, youth and women empowerment, innovation, and industry.
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