In October 2010, I received word from Dr Isa Odidi, a Toronto-based industrialist and one of the leaders of the Nigerian community in Canada, that Intellipharmaceutics, a multinational drug manufacturing and delivery company he co-founded with his wife, Dr Amina Odidi, was going to ring the NASDAQ opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange. Would I be able to join staff, friends, and well-wishers of Intellipharmaceutics for the event on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange? Although I missed the New York event due to prior conference commitments in Michigan, the significance of the moment was not lost on me: Intellipharmaceutics had become the first Nigerian, and indeed African publicly traded pharmaceutical company to mount the podium and ring the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange. Sadly, this remarkable story passed largely unnoticed by the obtuse mainstream local media in Nigeria.
Last week, I got word again from Dr. Odidi that Intellipharmaceutics was making it a double bang. Dazed that the Americans had beaten them to it by honouring a Toronto-based Nigerian firm that has been in the news here in Canada pretty much since it was founded by the Odidis, the Canadians rushed in and invited Intellipharmaceutics to ring the opening bell at the Toronto Stock Exchange (TMX) on January 27, 2011. Now, this was becoming the stuff that dreams are made of. Two Nigerians, Isa and Amina Odidi, were going to become the first Africans ever to have founded a pharmaceutical company that would have rung the opening bells of two major international stock exchanges (New York and Toronto) in quick succession.A remarkable Nigerian story was unfolding and nothing was going to make me miss this second invitation. I complained in the last instalment of this column (see: “A Day in the Kitchen”) about Nigerians and Africans making it into the kitchen only to discover that the carving knives are all in the hands of the master. Now, two Nigerians have rewritten that metaphor by owning the kitchen on the master’s turf and even becoming employers of the master. I needed to see things with my korokoro eyes. I notified my employers, made arrangements for my teaching assistants to teach my classes, and hopped on the plane to Toronto with Muyiwa, my accountant spouse who, more than my poor academic self, was going to be at ease in that eerie world of trade, stocks, and CEOs.
Faizel Jaffer, one of the lawyers of Intellipharmaceutics, was at the airport to receive us at the behest of Dr. Odidi. Now, if you are in US or Canadian academe and you are fresh out of graduate school in the job market, you know that your job interview starts at the airport whenever a University invites you to campus for a job talk. Watch out for that faculty member who comes to pick you at the airport. He will be the one to discuss “first impressions” when your fate is decided during a departmental meeting. I’ve picked up a bunch of job candidates in my career and have therefore acquired an airport assessment instinct over the years. That assessment instinct kicked in as soon as I met Faizel. I tuned in for every detail. He was my first window into the world of Intellipharmaceutics. I was scrutinizing him quietly for every detail about the professional world of the Odidis as he ushered us extremely courteously into his sleek BMW.
Beyond his multinational lawyerly élan, Faizel cut the picture of a man at home in his professional milieu. As he drove, he regaled us with stories of the remarkable strides of Intellipharmaceutics in the global pharmaceutical world. He had been working in Ottawa before moving to Toronto to join the Odidis. His stay in Ottawa was a form of preparation for his ambition of joining Intellipharmaceutics. That statement had a special significance for me: a Canadian swotting and sweating in Ottawa in order to be in good stead of being hired by two Nigerian industrialists. There was more to Faizel. There were the passion, the emotion, and the absolute sense of dedication whenever he mentioned Intellipharmaceutics. I made a mental note to try and determine if all the other staff of the company that I would meet were willing to give an arm and a leg for the company that employs them. If the answer turned out in the affirmative, could it be that the ability to sniff, hire, supervise, and motivate geniuses from every background imaginable lies at the root of the Odidis’ success story with Intellipharmaceutics?
I came closer to an answer to these questions when I met Habib Ahmed, the young and extremely energetic Nigerian who runs the IT (Information Technology) department of Intellipharmaceutics. They don’t come better motivated or dedicated than Habib. Like Faizel, here was another employee absolutely enamoured of his employers. I was beginning to wonder: how do the Odidis do it? For the occasion, Habib had been yanked off his computo-software universe to be the designated driver of those of us who were special guests of the Odidis for the occasion. That list comprises guests from Nigeria: the principal staff officer to the Chief of Army Staff, a member of the Dantata clan, Alhaji Ibrahim Ismail and his lovely wife, Hajia Binta Ismail. There was also Madam Kayten Jackden, Nigeria’s Deputy High Commissioner to Canada, who was there to represent the High Commission.
Some of these guests were staying at the Odidis; Muyiwa and I were in the same hotel with the Ismails; the Deputy High Commissioner was in yet another hotel. Toronto being a chaotic metropolitan sprawl with eight lanes of traffic-jammed monstrous highway macadam going in each direction, one can only imagine what Habib had to go through ferrying these different groups around in a van, endlessly planning and coordinating logistics as he drove, and attending to our every need. And all this underwritten by that absolute loyalty to the Odidis I had initially spotted in Faizel.
Alhaji Ibrahim Ismail and Hajia Binta Ismail. I really don’t know how to tell the story of this couple without getting emotional. They is good people, as our African American friends would put it. They had flown all the way from Nigeria to witness the event that brought all of us to Toronto. Their humility, their passion for Nigeria and Nigerians irrespective of ethnicity and religion, their disarming solicitude for everybody they met, irrespective of age and station in life were all things that I noticed and filed quietly in my memory. I had to constantly remind myself that these were people at the very top of the class ranking system in Nigeria. If only the coconut heads who harass our people daily with convoys and koboko-wielding soldiers in Abuja could learn from the simplicity of the Ismails. If only there were more Nigerians for whom our differences and fault lines vaporize in the presence of our common strengths and collective humanity like the Ismails. If only!
D-Day and we all assembled at the Toronto Stock Exchange. I was like a fish out of water in that world. Ah, the limitations of University seminar rooms! So different from the planet of the Donald Trumps of this world. People with very important-looking briefcases and suits were strutting all over the place. There were the klieg lights. All the electronic boards had the inscription: “Intellipharmaceutics: countdown to market open”. We were all there, beaming and revelling in that proud moment for Nigeria.
Enter the spoiler. There will always be that spoiler in the Western world to ruin the black moment and brutally remind you of the inescapability of race around here. The officials of the Toronto Stock Exchange were just about to start explaining the order of proceedings for the day to us when the idiot breezed in: a Caucasian Canadian in the mid-forties range. Suit, tie, and all the other indices of stock trader were all over him. He approached us, half beaming, half surprised, grabbed Alhaji Ismail’s hand in a very warm handshake, and stuttered: “ah, what’s going on here? Black history month?” I quickly gave Alhaji Ismail the appropriate body language before he mistook that deadly Canadian racism for an innocent query. The idiot was more or less saying that people who look and sound like us should have no business in the Toronto Stock Exchange unless the TSE had invited us there in a tokenist gesture to celebrate black history month. In the small world of that single Canadian racist, it was just not possible for two Africans to have founded a publicly traded pharmaceutical giant that could open the day’s trading. What was the world coming to? I told Alhaji Ismail that I teach people like that silly fellow as material in critical race theory courses.
After the bell ringing and endless photo sessions, we were driven to the offices and manufacturing plant of Intellipharmaceutics. Ah! The Yoruba say: “iroyin ko to afoju ba, nkan mbe l’ese rago”. The Hausa say: “gani ya fiji”. Our friends in England say: “seeing is believing.” And the French retort: “il faut le voir pour le croire”. I am not going to try and describe that factory for I do not have the words to match the camera of Joy Osiagwu of the Nigerian Television Authority who was also there to record proceedings for the audience of NTA Newsline on Sunday. From room to room, lab to lab, corridor to corridor, the Odidi’s took us through a guided tour of what Intellipharmaceutics does and why it has become such a force in Canada. We saw heavy machinery. We saw scientists, laboratory technicians, and people in the corporate section at work. Canadians, Nigerians, and Asians all form the work force of the Odidis who are the foremost employers of Nigerian labour here in Canada. Intellipharmaceutics also has plants in India and China. We were all in lab coats and I looked like a surgeon going for surgery. All this put together by a Nigerian couple.
All of this had started because the Odidis asked themselves a simple question while both of them were doing doctoral work in pharmaceutics in England. Why do you have to take some prescription drugs three to four times a day? Can’t a better system be developed for you to take that drug just once, have it retained somewhere in your system and released as needed to fight your ailment? So, when you hear Isa and Amina Odidi joke that they are into drug delivery, that is just a layman’s way of saying that two Nigerians are at the forefront of the scientific initiative to keep a drug in your system and have it delivered instalmentally from within to fight ailments instead of your having to take repeated dosages throughout the day. That is the simple scientific inquiry that took the Odidi’s to Saudi Arabia and Qatar after their doctorate in England. The Canadian government heard about them and their work and invited them to Canada.
Like the rest of us, the Nigerian Deputy High Commissioner was looking too overwhelmed for words. For it just wasn’t possible to have been part of that tour group and to see what two Nigerians, Isa and Amina Odidi, have put together without having that nagging feeling of what could have been if only vision and a sense of direction weren’t anathema to the obtuse rulers of Nigeria. It was particularly painful for us to hear and see evidence of the overtures being made to Isa and Amina Odidi by foreign governments that are not as allergic to progress as Abuja: overtures from China, Syria, India, Germany, and even more painfully, Ghana, Botswana, and other African countries. It seemed to me that every government except Nigeria was trying to yank the Odidis away from the Canadians.
In the board room of Intellipharmaceutics, Dr. Odidi talks painfully about his readiness to do all of this in Nigeria if only “they” would listen. His constant refrain hung ominously in the room: “they don’t listen to us”. They? Abuja. Us? Nigerians with valid contributions to make to national development. The Deputy High Commissioner put up a brave front. She tried as much as she could to be upbeat in her defence of Abuja and her projection into a future when “they” will listen. As the Deputy High Commissioner spoke, I thought that one of two things must happen before clueless Abuja begins to know what to do with Nigeria’s extraordinary expertise at home and abroad: hell will have to freeze or Nigerians will have to do Tunisia and Egypt. In essence, if they don’t listen to us, can Nigerians listen to history?
On the flight back to Ottawa, I thought about Toronto. The Toronto of Salisu Buhari seemed a distant ugly memory that has now been replaced by the Toronto of the Odidis and the Jude Igwemezies of this world. In essence, there is a Toronto that is being landscaped by Nigerian genius and initiative. Can Abuja see it?
Company Profile
Company: IntelliPharmaCeutics
Position: President, COO and Co-Chief Scientific Officer
Industry: Pharmaceutical
Country: Canada
http://www.blackentrepreneurprofile.com/pr...le/amina-odidi/
Dr. Amina Odidi is a founder and one of the principals of IntelliPharmaCeutics and serves as Director, President, Chief Operating Officer and Co-Chief Scientific Officer.
Since 1984 Dr. Amina Odidi has been a key player in the pharmaceutical industry by developing and applying proprietary technologies to the development of controlled-release drug products for third-party pharmaceutical companies.
Dr. Odidi received her B.Sc. degree in Pharmacy, from Ahmadu Bello University, and her M.Sc., Biopharmaceutics and Ph.D Pharmaceutics degrees from the University of London, England.
Dr. Odidi is an acclaimed scientist and innovator in the research, design, development and fabrication of controlled delivery technology platforms for sustained, timed, delayed, pulsatile or targeted delivery of pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, biological, chemical and agricultural materials in mammalian, terrestrial and extra-terrestrial environments. Dr. Odidi invented or co-invented various proprietary controlled delivery devices for the delivery of pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, biological, agricultural and chemical agents. She has held several senior management positions in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries.
Dr. Odidi's role in the company is to oversee and assist in the development of key proprietary technology, from conception, through research and development, scale-up and manufacture, to clinical trials and regulatory approval. Dr. Amina Odidi will also provide strategic direction, managerial and scientific guidance. Professor Isa Odidi, together with Dr. Amina Odidi developed, between 1984 and 1995, the majority of the proprietary drug delivery technology used by IntelliPharmaCeutics for the production of controlled-release drug products. Dr. Amina Odidi continued this development from 1995 to date.
Position: President, COO and Co-Chief Scientific Officer
Industry: Pharmaceutical
Country: Canada
http://www.blackentrepreneurprofile.com/pr...le/amina-odidi/
Dr. Amina Odidi is a founder and one of the principals of IntelliPharmaCeutics and serves as Director, President, Chief Operating Officer and Co-Chief Scientific Officer.
Since 1984 Dr. Amina Odidi has been a key player in the pharmaceutical industry by developing and applying proprietary technologies to the development of controlled-release drug products for third-party pharmaceutical companies.
Dr. Odidi received her B.Sc. degree in Pharmacy, from Ahmadu Bello University, and her M.Sc., Biopharmaceutics and Ph.D Pharmaceutics degrees from the University of London, England.
Dr. Odidi is an acclaimed scientist and innovator in the research, design, development and fabrication of controlled delivery technology platforms for sustained, timed, delayed, pulsatile or targeted delivery of pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, biological, chemical and agricultural materials in mammalian, terrestrial and extra-terrestrial environments. Dr. Odidi invented or co-invented various proprietary controlled delivery devices for the delivery of pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, biological, agricultural and chemical agents. She has held several senior management positions in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries.
Dr. Odidi's role in the company is to oversee and assist in the development of key proprietary technology, from conception, through research and development, scale-up and manufacture, to clinical trials and regulatory approval. Dr. Amina Odidi will also provide strategic direction, managerial and scientific guidance. Professor Isa Odidi, together with Dr. Amina Odidi developed, between 1984 and 1995, the majority of the proprietary drug delivery technology used by IntelliPharmaCeutics for the production of controlled-release drug products. Dr. Amina Odidi continued this development from 1995 to date.
By: Errol I. Mars
Company: IntelliPharmaCeutics
Position: CEO and Co-Chief Scientific Officer
Industry: Pharmaceutical
Country: Canada
Professor Isa Odidi is a founder and one of the principals of IntelliPharmaCeutics, and serves as Chairman of the Board, ChiefExecutive Officer, Co-Chief Scientific Officer and Chair of Scientific Advisory Board.
From 1995 to 1998, Professor Isa Odidi held positions, first as Director, then as Vice President, of Research, Drug Development and New Technologies at Biovail Corporation International (now Biovail Corporation), a drug delivery company. During this time, Professor Odidi developed several blockbuster drugs, including supergenerics of the very difficult to duplicate Adalat CC (Bayer) and Procardia XL (Pfizer).
In the pharmaceutical industry, Professor Odidi is highly regarded for his entrepreneurial acumen, something rare for a scientist. Professor Odidi is also a highly respected innovator and inventor with a long history of success. His work has been cited in textbooks and he has published over a hundred scientific and medical papers, articles and textbooks.
Prior to 1995, Professor Odidi held senior positions in academia and in the pharmaceutical and health care industries. He currently holds a Chair as Professor of Pharmaceutical Technology at the Toronto Institute of Pharmaceutical Technology in Canada, and is an Adjunct Professor at the Institute for Molecular Medicine, California, U.S.A.
Professor Isa Odidi received his B.Sc. degree in Pharmacy, from Ahmadu Bello University, and his M.Sc., Pharmaceutical Technology and Ph.D Pharmaceutics degrees from the University of London, England. Professor Odidi is a graduate of the highly regarded Western Executive Management Program at the Ivey School of Business, University of Western Ontario. He is also a member of University of Toronto, Rotman's School of Business Class of 2001.
Professor Odidi's role in the company is to provide inventive approaches to drug formulation, strategic direction, managerial and scientific guidance, and to oversee the widest commercialization of the company's considerable scientific capabilities.
http://www.blackentrepreneurprofile.com/profile-full/article/isa-odidi/
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