By Adedapo Adesanya
The African Development Bank (AfDB) has approved the establishment of the African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation.
The foundation is a new groundbreaking institution that will significantly enhance Africa’s access to the technologies that underpin the manufacture of medicines, vaccines, and other pharmaceutical products.
Rwanda will host the African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation. A common benefits entity, the foundation will have its own governance and operational structures. It will promote and broker alliances between foreign and African pharmaceutical companies.
The African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation will strengthen local pharmaceutical companies to engage in local production initiatives with systematic technology learning and technology upgrading at the plant level.
President of AfDB, Mr Akinwumi Adesina, described the initiative as “a great development for Africa. Africa must have a health defense system, which must include three major areas: revamping Africa’s pharmaceutical industry, building Africa’s vaccine manufacturing capacity, and building Africa’s quality healthcare infrastructure.”
During the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa in February 2022, the continent’s leaders called on the regional lender to facilitate the establishment of the African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation.
Mr Adesina, who presented the case for the institution to the African Union said “Africa can no longer outsource the healthcare security of its 1.3 billion citizens to the benevolence of others.” With this bold initiative, the AfDB has made good on that commitment.
The decision is a major boost to the health prospects of a continent that has been battered for decades by the burden of several diseases and pandemics such as COVID-19, but with a very limited capacity to produce its own medicines and vaccines. Africa imports more than 70 per cent of all the medicines it needs, gulping $14 billion per year.
When fully established, the organisation will be staffed with world-class experts on pharmaceutical innovation and development, intellectual property rights, and health policy; acting as a transparent intermediator advancing and brokering the interests of the African pharmaceutical sector with global and other Southern pharmaceutical companies to share IP-protected technologies, know-how and patented processes.
“Even with the decision of the TRIPS Waiver at the World Trade Organization (WTO), millions are dying -and will most likely continue to die – from lack of vaccines and effective protection. The African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation provides a practical solution and will help to tilt the access to proprietary technologies, knowledge, know-how and processes in favour of Africa,” Mr Adesina said.
On her part, the Director-General of the World Trade Organization, Mrs Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, said “The African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation is innovative thinking and action by the African Development Bank. It provides part of the infrastructure needed to assure an emergent pharmaceutical industry in Africa.”
The Director-General of the World Health Organization, Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus, while also commenting, said, “Establishing the African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation, by the African Development Bank, is a game changer on accelerating the access of African pharmaceutical companies to IP-protected technologies and know-how in Africa.”
Aduragbemi Omiyale