The Nationwide Company for Meals and Drug Administration and Management (NAFDAC) has appointed Cotecna Inspection Companies (CIS) as a Clear Report of Inspection and Evaluation (CRIA) agent in India to strengthen its combat towards the importation of substandard and falsified medicines from India and China.
The announcement was contained in an announcement despatched to The Guardian on Sunday, April 6, 2025, by the company’s Resident Media Guide, Sayo Akintola.
In line with the assertion, the brand new appointment is a part of efforts to develop NAFDAC’s pre-shipment regulatory management below the CRIA Scheme, which is already operational in each international locations.
The Director-Common of NAFDAC, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, who spoke throughout a hybrid technical assembly in Lagos, defined that the appointment of Cotecna adopted the evaluate and restructuring of the CRIA scheme below her management.
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“These measures had been applied to strengthen the CRIA scheme, improve effectivity, and bolster the combat towards counterfeit and substandard merchandise,” she stated.
She famous that India and China have remained main sources of falsified and substandard medicines getting into Nigeria, and that the CRIA system is essential in screening merchandise earlier than cargo.
“CRIA is aimed toward stopping the importation of substandard and falsified medicines and different regulated merchandise into Nigeria,” Adeyeye added.
She additional disclosed that the newly appointed Cotecna would be a part of 4 different CRIA brokers already working in India. The overall variety of brokers throughout India and China now stands at 9, with 4 based mostly in China.
“Within the final 5 years, CRIA brokers have efficiently stopped almost 200 consignments of merchandise that failed laboratory testing on the nation of origin and prevented shipments that didn’t meet NAFDAC’s documentation and labelling necessities,” the assertion stated.
Adeyeye listed some key obligations of CRIA brokers to incorporate product-specific testing, bodily inspection, documentation verification, and reporting of failed or suspicious consignments.
“It is very important notice that every one NAFDAC-regulated merchandise require CRIA processing, besides these on the CRIA exemption listing,” she stated.
To additional enhance transparency, NAFDAC stated it has launched a digital platform known as PIDCARMS to course of and confirm all CRIA documentation and inspection experiences electronically.
In her half, Vice President of Cotecna, Mrs Lena Sodergren praised the CRIA Scheme as probably the most complete inspection programme in Africa and pledged Cotecna’s dedication to compliance and high quality assurance.
“The collaboration between Cotecna and NAFDAC is a testomony to shared dedication to shopper security, product high quality, and facilitation of worldwide commerce,” Sodergren stated.
She described the scheme as distinctive in making certain traceability and eliminating solid take a look at experiences, blacklisted merchandise, and pretend declarations.
In the meantime, Director of NAFDAC’s Ports Inspection Directorate, Dr Olakunle Olaniran, disclosed that the company has intercepted a number of regulated merchandise via CRIA alerts, including that sanctions have been imposed on those that tried to bypass the system.
Adeyeye additionally revealed that NAFDAC is working carefully with the Indian authorities to make sure that medicines rejected at origin should not re-routed into Nigeria via backdoor channels.
“We need to know what occurs to the medicines that we rejected in India and be certain that some unscrupulous Nigerians don’t connive with their counterparts in India to smuggle the identical merchandise again into Nigeria via unorthodox means,” she said.
NAFDAC urged all exporters and importers of regulated merchandise to liaise solely with recognised CRIA brokers earlier than transport items from India or China to Nigeria.
