Rwanda is set to host the headquarters of the newly launched African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation (APTF), aimed at accelerating technology innovation in the continent’s health sector.
The development was announced during a high-level meeting that convened stakeholders in the private and public sector on May 22, on the margins of the African Development Bank Group’s 58th Annual Meetings taking place Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.
The pan-African agency set up by the African Development Bank (AfDB) comes as a dedicated institution to address the long-standing technology gaps in the region’s pharmaceutical sector, as requested by African Union member states.
It will work to promote technology access and transfer, facilitate technological upgrading of relevance to the pharmaceutical sector for Africa, and put in place several dedicated programs that will focus on enhancing technology absorption in Africa’s private and public sectors.
According to AfDB data, Africa imports more than 70 percent of the medications it needs at a cost of up to $14 billion annually, while it only manufactures one percent of the needed vaccines.
To ensure Africa’s health security, Akinwumi Adesina, President of AfDB, said that investing in domestic pharmaceutical production and innovation will help increase employment, improve the trade balance, reduce healthcare costs, and ensure access to safe, quality, and affordable drugs.
“Africa needs to proactively build its capacity for future pandemics, enhancing production facilities and involvement in research and development. Africa needs to establish itself as an equal player, both regionally and globally.”
The foundation comes as a solution to challenges facing African indigenous pharmaceutical companies such as weak human and institutional capacities, absorptive capacity for new technologies and lack of access to basic active pharmaceutical ingredients for drugs or antigens for vaccines.
APTF Advisory Council Chairmanship has been handed to President Paul Kagame, along with other members including Moussa Faki, the Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus, Director General of World Health Organization, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Director General of World Trade Organization, and Adesina of AfDB, among others.
The foundation is yet another impetus in the medical ecosystem that the African Union is spearheading, including the African Medicine Agency (AMA) –a specialized agency intended to facilitate the harmonisation of medical products regulation across the continent in order to improve access to quality, safe and efficacious medical products.
In addition, there are ongoing construction of the BioNTech vaccine manufacturing plants in Rwanda, Senegal, and South Africa, aimed at manufacturing and promoting scalable mRNA vaccines in Africa.
In March, Rwanda received containers of the first BioNTainer- facilities in Kigali Special Economic Zone located at Masoro-Munini, Gasabo District.
