By Adedapo Adesanya

The Gates Foundation has awarded a $5 million grant to Axmed, a healthcare technology company transforming how lifesaving medicines are procured across growth markets.

The financial support will be deployed as a matching fund, providing a 1:1 match on government procurement of maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH) commodities through the Axmed Medicines Platform.

The fund is part of the global health movement to expand affordable access to high-quality medicines.

It is expected to unlock up to $10 million in MNCH procurement across a selection of countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.

“It aims to strengthen national procurement capacity by offering Ministries of Health near-term liquidity, access to quality-assured MNCH commodities, and the benefits of pooled procurement and aggregated demand – driving both cost-efficiency and supply security,” the company said in a statement shared with Business Post.

The initiative was announced during a high-level roundtable held alongside the 78th World Health Assembly, which convened Ministers of Health, national procurement leads, and representatives from key multilateral organizations and philanthropic partners.

“Reducing the number of preventable deaths of mothers and babies is key to our work in sub-Saharan Africa,” said Ms Cynthia Mwase, Director of Health, Africa, Gates Foundation.

“This partnership with Axmed and local health leaders is an important step forward in ensuring that life-saving innovations reach the communities where they can make the greatest difference – so that more families can experience healthy pregnancies, safe births, and strong starts to life,” she added.

Every year, 287,000 women die from pregnancy and childbirth complications, and 2.3 million newborns die in their first month—despite the availability of proven, cost-effective interventions. Weak procurement systems, constrained budgets, and fragmented supply chains continue to limit access to essential MNCH commodities across low-resource settings.

The current global liquidity crunch, coupled with reductions in donor funding, has made it harder for governments to secure the medicines they need. This grant responds to that challenge—unlocking immediate financing while enabling longer-term procurement reforms.

“Through our partnership with Axmed, the Government of Rwanda has shown that meaningful improvements in the efficient and sustainable delivery of high-quality medicines across multiple therapeutic areas can be achieved.

“Now, through this matching fund, our partnership will expand this impact even further, reaching the most vulnerable with urgency and precision. This matching fund is a strategic step forward in reimagining procurement in a new era of global health: smarter, faster, and designed to deliver measurable results across the entire health system in collaboration with partners who are both innovative and purpose-driven “ said Dr Loko Abraham, Chief Executive Officer for Rwanda Medical Supply.

Axmed’s digital marketplace connects institutional buyers directly with vetted suppliers, aggregating demand across countries and consolidating procurement at scale.

In 2024, Ministries and other procurers using the platform achieved average savings of 20–30 per cent, with select MNCH products realizing up to 80 per cent cost reductions.

Axmed also partners with global logistics providers to manage end-to-end delivery, from manufacturer to last-mile distribution, with full tracking and traceability. The platform has been deployed across multiple LMICs to support national and regional procurement strategies.

“This fund is a clear example of how catalytic financing and technology can work together to deliver immediate and lasting impact,” said Mr Emmanuel Akpakwu, Founder and CEO of Axmed. “Our goal is not just to deliver quality medicines faster and more affordably, but to help build more resilient and efficient procurement systems for the future.”

By Adedapo Adesanya

The Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC) has applauded the approval of the Medipool project, which has been floated to address drug access in Nigeria’s most underserved regions.

According to Mr Jobson Ewalefoh, the Director-General of ICRC in a statement signed by Mr Ifeanyi Nwoko, Acting Head, Media and Publicity, said the project also includes the initiative would improve the lives of Nigerians.

“Imagine a Nigeria where no child dies due to the unavailability of vaccines, where every health facility, no matter how remote,, has access to life-saving drugs.

“That future begins now, with the Medipool Project. Medipool is just the beginning under President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda. Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) are driving infrastructure delivery across all sectors, ensuring that no Nigerian is left behind.”

He added that with Medipool, President Tinubu was restoring hope to neglected regions by ensuring access to essential medicines, which “is a right, not a privilege, for all Nigerians.”

Mr Ewalefoh said the Medipool initiative, part of the Presidential Initiative for unlocking the healthcare value chain, aimed to centralise the procurement and distribution of essential medicines, vaccines, and consumables.

He said this would be achieved through a high-efficiency Group Purchasing Organisation (GPO).

Mr Ewalefoh emphasised that the project would not only promote transparency and affordability but also ensure that no region was left behind, particularly rural and hard-to-reach areas that had historically suffered from poor access to medicines.

He said in addition to Medipool, FEC approved the Ikere Gorge Hydropower project (Oyo State), which was originally initiated under the Obasanjo military regime.

Mr Ewalefoh said the dam would be redeveloped under a Finance-Build-Operate-Transfer (FBOT) structure to generate over six megawatts of electricity.

He said the dam would also provide potable water to towns like Iseyin and Saki and irrigate thousands of hectares of farmlands.

Mr Ewalefoh listed other projects as the Coastal Fisheries Terminal (Borokiri, Rivers State).

“This project aims to boost Nigeria’s fishery value chain through modern cold-chain logistics, job creation, and enhanced export capability.

He said these PPP initiatives aligned with Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda to transform Nigeria’s infrastructure landscape, enhance service delivery, and stimulate inclusive economic growth.

Mr Ewalefoh said the ICRC would continue to provide regulatory oversight to ensure project transparency, value for money, and full alignment with global PPP standards.

By Adedapo Adesanya

The federal Government has approved a new policy known as Medipool, which targets lowering the cost of drugs and other medical consumables for Nigerians.

This was part of the decisions reached at the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting chaired by President Bola Tinubu at the State House, Abuja, on Monday.

The Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Professor Ali Pate, said Medipool is a group purchasing organisation for competitive pricing and to be a supplier of essential medicines and healthcare products across Nigeria.

According to him, Medipool was developed to consolidate the demand from basic healthcare centres and federal tertiary hospitals, enabling the government to leverage bulk purchasing power to lower medical costs.

“Today, council approved Medipool; it’s a group purchasing organisation for competitive pricing and to be supplier of essential medicines and healthcare products across Nigeria, through the Federal Government’s intervention, the basic health care provision fund, but also eventually outside that, through federal tertiary hospitals, so that as a buyer, we can negotiate lower prices.

“So, it’s using the monopsony power of the government as a large buyer of those commodities, negotiating lower prices and then channeling those commodities,” he said, according to a statement.

Speaking further, the minister explained, “The scope includes, but it’s not limited to procurement planning, distribution monitoring, supply chain, logistics management, quality assurance, regulatory compliance, as well as ensuring that local manufacturers are supported, and import substitution and the financial management and payment systems, as well as capacity building and training and contingency planning to ensure steady availability of essential drugs that are the quality that Nigerians can benefit and at a lower cost through, a public private partnership.”

He noted that the Medipool model was benchmarked against similar initiatives in countries such as Kenya, South Africa, Singapore, and Saudi Arabia, emphasising that the administration aims to support local manufacturing, promote import substitution, and ensure Nigerians have access to high-quality, affordable medicines.

The FEC also awarded a N2.3 billion contract for the procurement of a state-of-the-art cardiac catheterisation machine for Usmanu Danfodiyo University Teaching Hospital (UDUTH) in Sokoto.

The health minister said this will help the university hospital provide diagnosis and treatment services for heart and blood vessel problems, heart attacks, and irregular heart rates.

“The university hospital in Sokoto will now have this capability, which will serve the population in Sokoto State, the North West geopolitical zone of our country, and indeed the country. It will save lives, but also contribute towards reversing outbound medical tourism, because Nigerians will be able to access services that they were not able to,” he added.