More pharmaceutical firms may be listed on the Exchange

THE Association of Industrial Pharmacists of Nigeria (NAIP) yesterday, assured that more pharmaceutical companies will be listing on the floor of the Nigeria Stock Exchange (NSE) .

   The national chairman of the association, Gbenga Falabi said this during the courtesy visit to the Exchange, yesterday.

   He said that some of the companies in the industry would list their shares on the NSE, saying that the visit to the NSE is to facilitate the process.

  He added that healthcare companies had little visibility on NSE due to numbers of companies listed, saying “the industry seems to be public shy and we need to break this by bringing a good number of healthcare companies to list on the Exchange.”

   He explained that the sector is growing fast, saying “N12,000 spent per every Nigeria of 170 million people will lead to over N2 trillion yearly, this alone tells the potential in the industry.”

   “The industry is doing quite a lot in term of growth and for pharmaceutical world wide the growth is in the Africa region. He stated “the pharmaceutical industry in Nigeria is in the forefront as we will continue the growth drive both financially and products.

  “Recently four of our companies accredited with the WHO GMP certification and this is preparatory to the pre-qualification to Malaria, HIV, Tuberculosis products and many more companies are line up to be accredited”

  He pointed out that out of the four companies, two are quoted companies, May & Baker and Neimeth. 

  He explained that these products are currently internationally acceptable, adding that this would boost the prices of the stocks in the market.

  He added that this certainly is putting Nigeria pharmaceutical companies par with other international  companies worldwide.

   “With the current federal government support in terms of growing capacity, the future is certain for the pharmaceutical sector”.

Five pharmaceutical companies are currently listed on the first tier section of the NSE, namely: GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Nigeria Plc, May & Baker Nigeria Plc; Evans Medical Plc, Fidson Healthcare Plc and Neimeth International Pharmaceuticals Plc with total market capitalisation of N48.44 billion.