Pharmacy Profession is Beyond Economic Gains – Miraflash MD

pharmacy

The Managing Director of Miraflash Nigeria Limited, Pharm. Moses Oluwalade, is one of those who believe that the Pharmacy profession is primarily hinged on the accessibility and availability of quality medicines to the populace. In this exclusive interview with Pharmanews, at the 94^th annual conference of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria, Port Harcourt, 2021, he spoke with Patrick Iwelunmor, on issues relating to the vision of his company and what pharmacists must do to continue to add value to human existence. Excerpts

Sir, do you think this year’s PSN conference has lived up to its expectations?

Thank you very much. Within the limits of the constraints that we have in the Society, I believe that we actually tried. I was told that this venue is not the original venue but within a short time, the organisers were able to put things in order to avoid any further delays.  I give it to them; they actually tried. However, there will always be room for improvement. My message to the PSN is that, there should always be opportunities for improvement. This edition has come. We should start thinking of the next edition and look into ways we can make it better than this one.

Going by the number of pharmaceutical companies exhibiting their products and services here in Port Harcourt, wouldn’t you say that the hue and cry about economic hardship in the country is contradictory; knowing that securing a stand here must have cost some good money?

The activities you see here are part of our passion to develop the Pharmacy profession. Beyond making money and selling our products, we have a primary assignment of ensuring the availability of quality medicines to the populace. As a pharmacist, I am not only concerned about the economic aspect of my business but more on the professional aspect. It is our priority as pharmacists to make quality medicines available to the society, irrespective of the economic outcome. Bad economy will come and go but we must continue to sustain the profession. Pharmacy is beyond business; it also has to do with the protection of lives.

What would you say is the value proposition of Miraflash?

We have been in the market, for over a decade and we have been making available high quality pharmaceutical products to the populace.  However, it is not enough for your products to be of high quality.  One important factor is the affordability of these products.  It also must be available, and this is our vision: to make high quality pharmaceutical products available and affordable so that, in every home, no one will die because of unaffordability and unavailability.  That’s our vision and what we have been doing and that’s what we will continue to do.

The PSN elections are at hand, what should be our expectations?

Our expectations should be that we are going to select a set of executive that will run the association and the gladiators have been campaigning. All the people that came out are men of substance. They are all qualified and the fact that you have this set of highly reputable people, shows that the association is moving forward.  So, we should expect a very keen competition.

Your word of advice to the Pharmacy family in Nigeria.

I will advise that they should allow coherency and cooperation to reign amongst them.  Let there be professionalism and we must make it our foremost vision.  Every other thing should be secondary.  We must begin to think of how to sanitise the drug distribution system in the country that is currently in a chaotic situation. If we can come together and do this, then there would be a reduction in the circulation of fake and adulterated drugs in our system.