UPDATE FROM THE REGISTRY – NOVEMBER 01, 2020

PCN/C.6016/VOL.1/55

Dear Colleagues

On behalf of staff and management of the Pharmacists Council of Nigeria, I welcome all practitioners in the Nigerian Pharmaceutical Industry to the penultimate month of this year. Indeed, it has been a very eventful year and we trust God that in these last two months, we will surely recover all that we have lost.

I want to use this opportunity to implore all colleagues who are yet to complete their annual registration formalities for this year to please do so without further delay. Failure to do so would mean that they would be excluded from the ongoing strategic initiatives being planned by the council. As you must have noticed, the PCN official website – www.pcn.gov.ng – is currently under maintenance but be rest assured that the site will be up very shortly. In the interim, stakeholders can make use of this link, https://pcncore.azurewebsites.net/ for registration and licensing while for the MCPD-related issues, visit http://www.pcnmcpd.com/cycles.

Due to the recent events across the country, some Council programmes had to be rescheduled in the interest of safety and security. I am glad to inform you that the onsite programme for the Foreign Pharmacy Graduate Orientation Programme (FPGOP) earlier scheduled for October 19, 2020 would now hold on the 23^rd of November, 2020. In the same vein, the October cycle of the Pre-registration Examination (PEP) which was earlier scheduled to hold on the 24^th of October, 2020 would now hold on November 07, 2020.

In furtherance of our mandate to sanitize the practice environment for the benefit of the generality of Nigerians, the National Enforcement Team of the PCN visited Oyo and Gombe states in the month of October. In Oyo State, 22 Pharmacies and 402 Patent Medicine Shops were sealed for lack of compliance with PCN regulatory provisions, while 12 compliance directives were issued to others with minor offenses. In Gombe state, 8 Pharmacies and 432 Patent Medicine Shops were sealed while 25 compliance directives were issued to others respectively for minor infractions.

In the month of October 2020, the PCN in collaboration with PharmAccess organized a 3–day Training of Trainer (TOT) programme on Quality Inspection. This effort is geared towards digitization and optimization of PCN inspection activities for more effective performance. Furthermore, the Registry organized and hosted five (05) meetings of both Sub-committees and Ad hoc Committees of the PCN Governing Council. Many far-reaching recommendations were made for the consideration of the Governing Council at the upcoming regular meeting for the last quarter, 2020.

The Governing Council, Management, and staff of Pharmacists Council of Nigeria seize this opportunity to commiserate with all Nigerians who experienced losses in one form or the other, and Pharmacists in particular whose business premises were affected during the recent protests across the country. We pray that God will restore all you have lost in multiple folds.

Finally, I look forward to engaging with you all constructively during the forthcoming annual conference of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria coming up in Osogbo in November.

I wish you all a very productive month ahead.

Pharm Elijah Mohammed, PhD, FPSN, FNIM, FPCPharm, FNAPharm
Registrar