Matilda Omonaiye/
Drugs manufacturing company, May and Baker Plc, said it has produced one million tablets of chloroquine for the clinical trial treatment of coronavirus, Saturday PUNCH reports.
This followed a request by the Director General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Prof Mojisola Adeyeye, to the company to manufacture the drug for emergency stockpiling.
The agency reportedly took the step after Lagos State, which has 109 confirmed cases, the highest in the country, signified interest in using the drug for clinical trial to find treatment for the virus.
Adeyeye had said in a statement that the drug was reported to function as anti-viral at both the entry and post-entry stages of 2019-nCoV infection, adding that chloroquine had also been reported as potential broad spectrum anti-viral drug.
She added, “About four weeks ago, I approached a local manufacturing company (May and Baker), a member of Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Group of Manufacturing Association of Nigeria, whose flagship product in the past was chloroquine, to make a batch of the drug for emergency stock. The company had NAFDAC approval for the production of the drug as anti-malarial many years ago before the discontinuation.”
According to Adeyeye, despite initial difficulty expressed by the managing director of the company, the hurdle was later cleared, leading to the production of the drug, with more to be manufactured.
The Managing Director of May & Baker, Nnamdi Okafor, confirmed that the company had finished the production of “one million tablets of chloroquine” for the first batch of the proposed clinical trial.
He however said he was not aware of the commencement date of the proposed clinical trial.
“I really don’t know when the clinical trial would commence, but I want to believe that the government is still putting its protocol together,” Okafor said.
He also said he didn’t know when the second batch of production would commence as the company had not received an approval for the second batch.
Commissioner for Information in Lagos State, Mr Gbenga Omotoso, who confirmed the development, said that the government was still working on the modalities.
“Work is ongoing on the clinical trial and once they find it to be okay for treatment, either the NCDC or the Commissioner for Health would announce it. However, the health commissioner had confirmed that the process had begun,” Omotoso reportedly said.
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