Ironically, one of the few women who stood against the tyranny of the for chief executive, Dr. Stephen Kwabena Opuni, at a time it became glaring that he was running the organization into the ditch, Delese Mimi Darko, is the one at the receiving end of the backstabbing going on at the Authority.

 

Already, this paper is informed that an independent committee formed by the presidency to recommend a name for the CEO position settled on Mimi Darko, such that in the coming days, the Pharmacist would be announced as the next FDA boss.

 

The Crusading GUIDE can confirm that barring any last minute hitches, competent and affable Mimi Darko is the new FDA boss.

 

One of the issues raised against Mimi, as her contemporaries call her, is that she is not popular but workers at the FDA say that argument is flat and dead even before its arrival because there is no one at the Authority that is more known than Mimi Darko.

 

More so, contrary to media blister last week that Mimi Darko was an NDC woman who would only continue with the reign of terror Opuni left behind, independent checks on the woman who recently initiated the establishment of patient safety centers in pharmacies nationwide, to ensure that patients are empowered to report the safety of medicines that they take is a dye-in-the wool NPP sympathizer, with a father that is a card-bearing member of the same party.. 

 

Her initiative it was, that led to the improvement of the anti- counterfeiting strategies and helped to develop and the awareness creation in the detection of counterfeit and substandard medicines in Ghana. She is a pharmacist with over 25 years' experience in regulation.

 

Our findings on Mimi Darko revealed that after graduating from the university in 1991, she worked first with the then Pharmacy Board, specifically in the laboratory for 7 years where she helped put in the systems to ensure that drugs locally manufactured and imported were analyzed for quality before they were put on the market. 

 

In 1997, the paper learnt, she was one of the pioneers of the newly established FDA and rose through the ranks to become the Head of Registration- a position she held till 2010. During this period she implemented innovative strategies that resulted in upgrading of products manufactured by the local pharmaceutical industry. 

 

Mimi Darko also initiated regulation of herbal medicines in Ghana and supported the development of the herbal medicine industry. It was during her time, we were told, that herbal medicines evolved to become well packaged and labelled. Under her leadership, Ghana became a member of the WHO programme for international drug monitoring in 2001, ensuring that medicines used were safe. 

 

Under her leadership, the regulation of clinical trials started and has grown to the point where Ghana is considered the leader in clinical trials in the sub-region. In acknowledgement of her global leadership and technical expertise, the WHO organized its annual meeting of Medicine experts in Ghana in 2010. Following that she was appointed onto The WHO/ CIOMS Committee on Vaccine Safety to work with leading regulators from the US, Europe, Canada, Japan and other countries to set standards for global vaccine safety.

Due to her performance, the final meeting for that committee was hosted by the FDA in Accra in 2016, first time ever in sub Saharan Africa Her expertise has led to the FDA the being nominated and recognized by the nepad/ African Medicines Regulation Harmonization (AMRH) as 3 Regional Centres of Regulatory Excellence in Medicines Safety (pharmacovigilance), Clinical Trials and Drug Registration.

She is a founding member of AVAREF, the African Vaccines Regulatory Forum and was last year nominated to serve on the technical coordinating committee of the newly organized AVAREF. She has served as an expert advisor on the African regulators network and worked tirelessly to ensure harmonization of regulatory systems across Africa.