The federal government and relevant stakeholders have been tasked to remove the bottlenecks associated with the delay in the clinical trial of drugs in Nigeria.
The Founder of Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti, Aare Afe Babalola made the call at a conference on Drug Discovery in Africa held in the institution.
Aare Babalola said there were many bottlenecks associated with the production of drugs in the country such as inefficiency of testing equipment, the cumbersome system in approving drugs by concerned agencies and huge taxes placed on the importation of testing equipment.
He said the University had produced some drugs from local herbs, especially for COVID-19 but to date, its clinical trial had not been completed.
Aare Babalola said there is the need to remove all hindrances to easy testing and approval of scientific research in the country.
“Currently, we have data for the treatment /management of diabetes, hypertension, arthritis, breast cancer and autism from herbs in medicine garden”.
The Provost, College of Pharmacy of the institution, Professor Mbang Femi-Oyewo said the African continent was blessed with varieties of plants which are useful in the production of drugs but had not been properly harnessed.
Earlier in his welcome address, the Acting Vice Chancellor of ABUAD, Professor Sylvester Ojo expressed optimism that at the end of the conference, many plants available in Africa would be tapped into to develop drugs.