PSN deploys more technologies to fight fake drugs

Worried by the prevalence of fake drugs in the market, the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN) has vowed to deploy appropriate technologies to check the prevalence of fake and counterfeiting drugs in the country. PSN President, Pharm. Ahmed Yakasai said it is high time pharmacists keyed into the digital revolution to create value and provide […]

Worried by the prevalence of fake drugs in the market, the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN) has vowed to deploy appropriate technologies to check the prevalence of fake and counterfeiting drugs in the country.

PSN President, Pharm. Ahmed Yakasai said it is high time pharmacists keyed into the digital revolution to create value and provide better services to the public.

He spoke in Lagos during a workshop on “Convergence of technology and the impact on pharmaceutical practice," organized by the Education committee of the society.

Yakasai said the organization is working in partnership with the National Agency for Food, Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) and other agencies determined to fight fake drugs using the latest IT technologies.

He noted that technologies had transformed every spectrum of the society and the PSN must not be left out in the digital revolution.

"No doubt that we need to harness the power of digital technologies and data transformation to create value and offer better services to the public", Yakasai said.

According to him, it is the desire of PSN "to leverage on technology to create a better practice and training for all of us".

Chairman of the IT Platform of PSN, Mr. Lekan Asuni said the workshop was to assess the gaps in the deployment of IT in the pharmaceutical industry.

He noted that most pharmacists have keyed into the digitization drive but more efforts still need to be put in the area of adopting appropriate technologies to drive pharmaceutical practice.

He said: "It’s catching fire but there is still a lot to be done. It is a work in progress. The goal is to see that in different areas of practice, we use different aspects of IT.

“Some are specific for your area of practice but there are some that we need to see how they link together and speak together so that we know what is going on across different practice areas so that we can have a common platform to access data and information by both practitioners and the general public.

"So the essence of this workshop is to assess what we have, what are the gaps and what we can do to be IT ready for the future."