Stakeholders in the pharmaceutical industry have appealed to Pfizer Inc. to be fair in its compensation of staff laid off from its Nigerian operation.
The stakeholders who pleaded anonymity spoke in separate interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday in Lagos.
Pfizer is a global biopharmaceutical company with the purpose of applying science and its global resources to develop and deliver breakthrough therapies to people everywhere.
Its global portfolio includes medicines and vaccines, as well as many of the world’s best-known consumer healthcare products.
The stakeholders told NAN that Pfizer’s business operation had been struggling post-COVID-19 due to local and global economic challenges, which prompted the company to adopt a new business model for its operation in Nigeria and Kenya.
According to the stakeholders, the drugmaker has transitioned to a third-party direct distribution model for its pharmaceutical products.
They noted that the adoption of the business model rendered some staff and departments within its Nigerian operation redundant.
“People are losing their livelihood and want the company to be fair to them in how they pay them off.
“The decision would have a far-reaching effect on not just the direct workers but also on the people that do business with the company and patients,” the stakeholder said.
Another stakeholder worried that critical medicine for cancer, infection, and other ailments that Pfizer was renowned for manufacturing might be unaffordable for patients.
Dr Kehinde Adejumo, a General Physician, emphasised that the medical community would be impacted by Pfizer’s change of business model in the country.
Adejumo highlighted that the effects would be felt in dwindled investments in healthcare, support for research, and co-sponsoring of patients, among others.
He urged the Federal Government to ensure business-friendly policies and environment to retain full operation and investment of multinationals in the country.
Similarly, Mr Adewale Oladigbolu, a former Chairman of the Association Of Community Pharmacists of Nigeria (ACPN), said the adoption of a third-party business model by multinational pharmaceutical companies had led to disruption in the country’s health sector.
Oladigbolu emphasised that the situation had led to scarcity and hyper-pricing of medical commodities pushing it beyond the financial reach of patients.
“Once people don’t have justifiable access to medicine, the disease will stay longer with those people. Some will end up dying because they cannot afford their medication.
“What we have now is unjustifiable access to medicine. In fact, lack of access completely in some cases because the products are expensive,” he said.
Oladigbolu said the commercial entities that are saddled with the distribution and importation of the products carefully select the fast-moving ones for business.
“If GSK or Pfizer were to be in Nigeria fully, almost all their products would be in the country.
“Those who are supposed to import it are selecting the fast-moving ones and leaving the life-saving ones that are not so profitable.
“You will not see them in the market, meaning that people who need them won’t get them. And if it’s a disease with a progression of becoming terminal, then that would be the case for that patient.
“Unless the patient can afford maybe a third party who has to go through NAFDAC to say, I want to import this product for this patient,” he said.
Oladigbolu emphasised that companies could not be stopped from reinventing their business strategy in tandem with local realities and business climate.
NAN recalls that GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), and Sanofi, are global pharmaceutical companies that had also adopted a third-party direct distribution model for their operations in Nigeria.
