NIPRD rules out “suspicion” over diabetes remedies

National Institute for Pharmaceutical Research and Development has ruled out any “room for suspicion” in its handling of candidate diabetes plant remedies submitted by herbalists. “It is not the intention of this institute to disenfranchise any herbalist,” said NIPRD director-general, Prof Karniyus Gamaniel, on Monday ahead of scheduled formal opening this Thursday of its N713million […]

National Institute for Pharmaceutical Research and Development has ruled out any “room for suspicion” in its handling of candidate diabetes plant remedies submitted by herbalists.

“It is not the intention of this institute to disenfranchise any herbalist,” said NIPRD director-general, Prof Karniyus Gamaniel, on Monday ahead of scheduled formal opening this Thursday of its N713million headquarters at Idu, Abuja. His response came months after Oladele Abdul-Rauf, among herbalists who submitted remedies, accused NIPRD of shutting him out and denying him any hope of signing a memorandum of understanding after his remedy was supposedly give green light to continue in a four-year N119 million anti-diabetic medicine development project backed by the World Bank.

“For almost eight months, they did not even call, they did not even try to tell me what is happening,” Abdulrauf told Daily Trust in an exclusive interview last December.

NIPRD had received 88 anti-diabetic recipes and selected 18, which were later whittled down to four, based on analyses, ahead of possible listing with the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control.

Gamaniel said the products on its final list could not get trademark unless all they passed all five levels of testing required for herbal medicines at NIPRD.

In one particular sample, AD1, pharmacological studies in vitro [in glass] to estimate how the remedy allowed absorption of glucose was “perfect,” admitted Gamaniel, but further studies outside glass and in tissues could not proceed.

“To introduce it in-vivo is still questionable. As chairman of the forum [that meets every Monday, I say if you are able to give me results, I will take it further,” he said. “Only then can we sign an MOU as to how development can proceed. And this is for all other herbs and AD1 is not an exception.”

The World Bank project elapsed last June, and herbalists have since complained about the pace of progress on the anti-diabetic medicines but Gamaniel said NIPRD was delayed on account of some of its scientists taking leave.

“I am assuring you that this project will go forward at the right time,” he said.