The National Institute for Pharmaceutical Research and Development is a Nigerian institution charged with developing drugs, biological products, and pharmaceutical raw materials, conducting quality-assurance tests, research for locally manufactured medicines and constituting guidelines for their production. Founded in 1987, it was a parastatal under the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology. In 2001, it was moved to Federal Ministry of Health. History In August 2018, NIPRD got ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation, for meeting international standards for testing medicines, food, cosmetics, agricultural products, and herbal products. In July, 2019, NIPRD announced that they had developed six traditional herbal products for the treatment and management of Ebola, malaria, sickle cell anaemia and other diseases. In August 2021, African Export-Import Bank awarded $400,000 grants to NIPRD to boost local production of active pharmaceutical ingredients. In April 2022, the NIPRD signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, to improve the industry value chain for traditional medicine in Nigeria and Africa. In August 2022, the NIPRD constituted a Disease Detection and Prevention Consortium along with University of Sheffield, Usman Danfodiyo University and the West African Health Organization. Major drug developments Niprisan The NIPRD produces Niprisan for the management of sickle cell disorders. It is commercialized as Niclovix. Niprisan is a phytochemical formulated from parts of four different indigenous plants (Piper guineenses seeds, Pterocarpus osun stem, Eugenia caryophylum fruit and Sorghum bicolor leaves). in June 2018, May & Baker signed a production agreement with NIPRD for the commercialization of Niprisan in Nigeria. In July 2022, The director-general of NIPRD, Dr. Obi Adigwe, announced that more than 40 countries buys Niprisan from Nigeria. Niprimune In March 2020, under the directive of the federal government, the NIPRD started developing models to identify herbal medicines to combat COVID-19. By early 2021, NIPRD had discovered Niprimune as a locally made COVID-19 vaccine and it was approved by the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control. The institute had decried lack of funding to advance its production of the vaccine. Controversies In 2015, Premium Times reported that the then Director General, Karniyus Gamaniel, was violating civil service rules by refusing to advertise available vacancies but instead sharing slots and conducting shabby interviews leading to job racketeering in the institution. In a follow up report, Gamaniel said the vacancies were not advertised because the candidates were selected from an existing database of applicants from previous job