The Tertiary Education Trust Fund on Wednesday said it would be providing “mega research support” to four public agencies, led by the National Institute for Pharmaceutical Research and Development for the purpose of producing drugs.

The Executive Secretary of TETFund, Prof Suleiman Bogoro, disclosed this during a virtual meeting on Institutionalisation of R&D in Nigeria’s Pharmaceutical Subsector Thematic Group, which coincided with the one year anniversary of the establishment of the TETFund Research and Development Standing Committee.

Bogoro, who did not provide details of the identity and specific research activities the other agencies are expected to undertake, noted that the NIPRD will collaborate with the Forestry Research Institute of Nigeria, Ibadan to carry out research and production of phytomedicine.

“TETFund will be providing mega research support to some agencies; in a matter of days, maximum one or two weeks thereabouts, who knows even before the end of this week, I may be sitting with about four entities that have been identified.

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“And I am happy to mention here that NIPRD will be leading the mega research thrust in respect of drug development and I intend to request that they work with one or two entities,” he said.

Speaking on the institutional arrangement of the proposed National Research and Development Foundation, he said the foundation would be subsumed under the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, when it is established, stating that the agency would not be domiciled in a single ministry.

The TETFund boss expressed the belief that activities of the RDSC are gradually and firmly transforming perceptions about research in the country, adding that the committee was changing peoples opinions about the appropriate direction that the country must take, going forward.

Source: The Punch