GEORGETOWN, Guyana – Guyana is seeking assistance from the European Union towards further developing its healthcare and pharmaceuticals as the EU’s Health and Pharma Investment Mission ends a three-day visit later on Wednesday.
Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony addressing the European Union’s Global Gateway Investment Mission.The mission formed part of the EU’s flagship Global Gateway initiative, designed to foster sustainable investment and deepen ties with strategic partners across the globe.
Health Minister Dr. Frank Anthony said that Guyana is moving ahead with revamping its pharmaceutical regulatory system with assistance from Rwanda, as part of preparations to possibly become a leading drug manufacturer and supplier to Caribbean and European Union (EU) markets.
“We have done an assessment of our regulatory agency and our laws, when we looked at them- they date back to 1974 which is pretty old and we have worked with our partners, including the Pan American Health Organization and we have a draft new law for the pharmaceutical industry.”
He told the European Union’s Global Gateway Investment Mission that in addition to the law, there would be seven annexes on matters such as pharmacovigilance to bring Guyana up to the level of global best practice.
Anthony said a review of the operations of the Food and Drug Administration has revealed a number of “gaps” including the need for a “good laboratory”.
He said the Guyana government has invested five million US dollars in a Food and Drug Lab located at the University of Guyana which would be finished in another year.
“Once that is completed, then we would have a good home where we can do all the regulatory testing and it would meet the best practices internationally,” he said.
Anthony said Rwanda has shared the human resource structure of its regulatory authority and that another Rwandan expert is due to be here for a couple of months.
“Once that person comes and works with us, we are committed to hiring the relevant experience to make sure that our regulatory authority functions as it should,” he said.
With support from the EU and Rwanda, Barbados and Guyana are continuing preparatory work to begin the manufacture of drugs, including vaccines.
“During COVID, I think we all over the world realized that it became super difficult to buy medicine, to buy anything that is of relevance in the health sector and that you need, as a region, to be able to rely on your own production facilities,” the Health Minister said, noting that the EU had supported Rwanda to do so.
Lithuania, Guyana and Barbados have already signed a joint declaration to strengthen the systems in the two Caribbean countries. The idea has already been discussed by health ministers at the level of the Caribbean Community’s Council for Human and Social Development.
Anthony said Guyana already has “some experience” through the decades-old New Guyana Pharmaceutical Corporation that had also produced HIV anti-retroviral vaccines.
The EU Ambassador wooed the European pharmaceutical companies to take advantage of the duty free, quota free exports from Guyana under EU-Caribbean Economic Partnership Agreement.
Anthony praised Rwanda for improving its regulatory authority to “almost the highest level” for pharmaceuticals being manufactured there. He said as a result of that Rwanda had attracted a number of European companies to establish a manufacturing base there.
“While their physical plant might be in Rwanda, it is also distributing these meds, devices and other things that they are making there to the rest of Africa. That’s a huge market that they would have access to,” he said.
