The Federal Government has announced plans to adopt Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy and other gene-based technologies to advance medical treatment, aiming to strengthen Nigeria’s healthcare system and expand access to cutting-edge therapies.
Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare, Dr. Iziaq Adekunle Salako, disclosed this during an interaction on emerging technologies organized with partners in Abuja. He noted that Africa has lagged in adopting innovative medical treatments and stressed the need to close the gap.
“Across Africa, for far too long, our people have been deprived of new and innovative treatments due to a lack of engagement with the potential in our setting,” he said. Salako explained that gene-based interventions such as CAR T-cell therapy could significantly improve patient outcomes while strengthening research and clinical capabilities across African institutions.
He reiterated the government’s commitment to equipping clinicians and scientists with access to partnerships and ecosystems that support the adoption of global health technologies for local solutions. The minister noted that ongoing collaboration between the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare and the National Institute for Pharmaceutical Research and Development (NIPRD) reflects efforts to strengthen health systems and improve medicine security.
According to him, Africa remains the only continent yet to deploy CAR T-cell therapy at scale, describing localisation of the innovation as critical but achievable with strong political will. “As of today, Africa is the only continent that has not begun to leverage CAR T-cell therapy robustly and comprehensively,” he said, adding that the next phase would involve scaling deployment across professional and clinical settings in Nigeria and beyond.
In his remarks, the Director-General of NIPRD, Obi Adigwe, said research and innovation remain central to addressing Nigeria’s health challenges and advancing evidence-based healthcare policies. “At the heart of these presidential initiatives lies research and scientific innovation to develop capacities to solve contextual issues, especially in our most neglected diseases and settings,” he said.
Adigwe called for stronger collaboration among government, academia, and industry to build capacity, tackle neglected diseases, and improve population health outcomes. Also speaking, the Executive Director of Caring Cross, Boro Dropulic, said advanced cellular and gene therapies could offer one-time curative treatments for serious diseases, including cancers and genetic disorders.
“These are one-time therapies. You don’t need to take the medicine continuously. You receive your own cells, and then you’re cured of the disease in those situations,” he said. He explained that the technology works by modifying a patient’s cells to restore their ability to fight disease, describing it as a form of regenerative medicine.
Dropulic added that the organisation’s model focuses on technology transfer to enable local production of therapies within hospitals and specialised facilities. This, he said, includes training healthcare workers, supporting infrastructure development, and enabling domestic manufacturing of key components used in gene therapies.
He noted that local production would reduce delays in accessing treatment and eliminate dependence on foreign facilities for advanced care. “By making it locally, you can get these therapies more quickly to patients within a much shorter time,” he said. Dropulic further stated that building local manufacturing capacity would develop skilled manpower, strengthen supply chains, and reduce reliance on imports while improving national health self-sufficiency.
He added that the initiative could create high-value jobs, reduce medical tourism, and position Nigeria as a regional hub for advanced healthcare innovation.
