Dear subscriber,
Africa has a multi-billion dollar business opportunity in scaling equitable access to TB treatment, especially for the growing drug-resistant TB.
Treezer Michelle Atieno - Editor
Africa’s pharmaceutical sector is missing out on a $4.5 billion annual market for drug-resistant TB treatment. The new WHO-recommended BPaLM regimen, with over 85% treatment success, relies on four antibiotics; bedaquiline, pretomanid, linezolid and moxifloxacin, none of which are currently manufactured on the continent.
The all-oral six-month treatment plan, recommended by the World Health Organization in 2022, replaces older treatments that were harder to complete and lasted 9 to 18 months or longer. Local manufacturing of the antibiotics would allow Africa to capture a share of the multi-billion-dollar TB market.
While this may take time, immediate business entry points include distribution and logistics, licensing partnerships, expanding diagnostics capacity and developing patient support or adherence services.
Our take: The ultimate solution in reducing the TB burden in Africa is local manufacturing of the key antibiotics, which would secure sustainable access and reduce reliance on imports…Read more (2 min)
Counterfeit and substandard medicines remain a major threat to Africa’s health systems, contributing to over 500,000 deaths annually. In this op-ed, Mike Adeyemi-Lawal examines how a new wave of African health technology firms like MPedigree, RxAll, True-Spec Africa and Chekkit, are deploying verification tools to address this challenge.
“Technology is beginning to address critical gaps in medicine quality, but its impact will depend on integration, scale and alignment with market realities.” Says Lawal, an infectious diseases expert.
He argues that Africa’s pharmaceutical market, now worth around $200 billion annually, is expanding rapidly and regulations must be tightened to go hand in hand with the emerging technologies to tackle fake medicines.
Read the full opinion…Read more (2 min)
At least $86 million has been committed to four new healthcare projects across Africa in the first quarter of 2026. The largest share of funding, supporting two projects worth over $52 million, is directed towards workforce skills development, including community health systems and biomedical engineering capacity.
This is the biggest funding for workforce skills development in the past year according to our projects tracker. The African Development Bank Group is investing $34 million in Rwanda while the Africa Frontline First initiative is deploying $19 million across multiple countries.
The remaining funds support two other projects in local pharma manufacturing and emergency preparedness. Our tracker focuses on infectious disease control, vaccines and pharma manufacturing.
Our take: Despite $86 million committed, local pharma manufacturing still lags while Africa remains dependent on imports for essential drugs…Read more (2 min)
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Health profession regulators agree on education quality standards in Africa
Events
🗓️ Register for the Africa Health Business in Kenya (April 21)
🗓️ Participate in World Health Summit in Kenya (April 27)
🗓️ Join the 10th Healthcare Innovation Summit Africa in SA (May 27)
Jobs
🧑⚕️Be the Program Manager, African Genomics Program at Roche (Kenya)
🧑⚕️Apply to be the Medical Science Liaison Officer at AstraZeneca (Kenya)
🧑⚕️Join Gates Foundation as a Deputy Director, AI Delivery (Kenya)
Various
💉 RevnaBio secures triple international laboratory accreditation for research
💉 Malaria resurgence feared as Africa faces funding decline
💉 Digital app slashes Rwanda's antibiotic use by 50%
Seen on LinkedIn
Navin Choubey, Chief Executive Officer at Revital Healthcare (EPZ) Limited, says, “Africa’s next major industrial opportunity might be hiding in plain sight: healthcare manufacturing. Today, many African countries still rely heavily on imported medical devices, from syringes and diagnostic kits to everyday hospital consumables. While imports have supported healthcare systems for years, this dependence becomes challenging whenever global supply chains are disrupted.”