From the newsletter
Navin Choubey, the Chief Executive Officer at Revital Healthcare, one of the largest manufacturers of disposable medical products in Africa, argues that the continent’s next major industrial opportunity might be hiding in plain sight: Healthcare manufacturing. He outlines how local pharma production is beginning to take shape across the continent.
“Africa’s population is growing rapidly, healthcare demand is increasing and regional trade is becoming more integrated. Together, these factors are creating the conditions for a stronger and more resilient healthcare manufacturing ecosystem,” he says.
Choubey notes that investment, skilled talent and stronger supply chains will be essential to build a resilient and competitive pharmaceutical manufacturing ecosystem in Africa.
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By Navin Choubey, the Chief Executive Officer at Revital Healthcare
For much of the past century, Africa has been a consumer of medicines manufactured elsewhere. Molecules discovered in Europe, tablets pressed in India, packaging printed in Asia, all converging on our shelves, our pharmacies, our hospitals. Kenya was no exception.
That story is changing. And I believe we are at the beginning of something genuinely historic.
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.
We saw this clearly during the pandemic, when many countries faced delays and shortages of essential medical products.
This experience highlighted an important reality: access to healthcare is closely linked to the ability to manufacture locally.
At the same time, several long-term trends are creating strong momentum for the sector across the continent. Africa’s population is growing rapidly, healthcare demand is increasing, and regional trade is becoming more integrated. Together, these factors are creating the conditions for a stronger and more resilient healthcare manufacturing ecosystem.
Having spent the better part of a decade running pharmaceutical manufacturing operations in Kenya — from the sterile production floors of Nairobi to the EPZ corridors of Mombasa — I have had a front-row seat to a quiet but powerful transformation. “Made in Kenya” is no longer an aspiration. It is becoming a credential.
The foundations are being laid
Kenya today hosts a growing number of WHO-GMP certified manufacturing facilities capable of producing tablets, capsules, liquids, creams, and injectables to international standards. Regulatory bodies like the Pharmacy and Poisons Board have steadily modernised their frameworks, aligning with global benchmarks that make Kenyan-made products exportable and credible across the continent.
The government’s push through Export Processing Zones (EPZs) has been a meaningful catalyst — offering fiscal incentives that make local manufacturing economically viable, not just patriotically desirable. Combine that with Kenya’s strategic position as East Africa’s commercial hub, and you have a genuine value proposition for both domestic production and pan-African distribution.
The med-tech dimension
Beyond pharmaceuticals, Kenya’s MedTech space is quietly gaining momentum. Local innovators are developing diagnostic tools, point-of-care devices, and digital health solutions tailored to African disease burdens and healthcare infrastructure realities. This is not imitation — it is innovation born of necessity and context.
What excites me most is the intersection: when locally manufactured medicines meet locally developed diagnostics and digital health platforms, we begin to build a truly integrated healthcare value chain. That is when “Made in Kenya” becomes more than a label — it becomes a system.
What still needs to happen
Optimism must be grounded. There are structural challenges that honest conversation cannot sidestep — inconsistent access to affordable capital for manufacturers, gaps in skilled technical talent, and supply chain vulnerabilities that global disruptions (as COVID-19 painfully illustrated) can expose overnight.
But I have seen what is possible. During the pandemic, our team pivoted production lines within weeks to manufacture sanitisers — meeting urgent national demand while protecting revenue and jobs. That kind of operational agility, born of local ownership and local decision-making, is precisely what a foreign supply chain cannot replicate.
The case for confidence
Kenya has the regulatory infrastructure, the entrepreneurial energy, the geographic advantage, and increasingly the manufacturing capability to become a genuine pharma and MedTech hub for East and Central Africa.
What it now needs is sustained investment — from private capital, development finance institutions, and a policy environment that rewards long-term manufacturing commitment over short-term import convenience.
Developing this industry is not only about building factories. It is about improving health security, creating skilled jobs, strengthening supply chains, and supporting sustainable economic growth.
I have built plants, registered products, and navigated cross-border regulatory environments across this continent. I know the complexity. But I also know the opportunity — and I have rarely been more optimistic about what the next decade holds for healthcare manufacturing in Kenya.
Africa has the opportunity to build more of what it needs — closer to home.
The “Made in Kenya” stamp on a medicine packet is not just a mark of origin. It is a statement of capability, resilience, and ambition.
The future of healthcare manufacturing can very much be made in Africa.
It is a mark worth fighting for.