Following a humiliating experience that African countries faced in the heat of the COVID-19 pandemic, the African development bank (AfDB) has approved the construction of the African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation, to transform the region’s pharmaceutical fortunes.

The landmark institution is expected to ease access to technologies that are used in manufacturing medicines, vaccines, and other pharmaceutical products, to guarantee healthcare safety on the African continent.

According to a statement released by the bank, 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 very limited capacity to produce its own medicines and vaccines.

The continent is said to spend approximately $14b (sh52.5trillion) each year, on the importation of medicines comprising about 70% of its annual need.

“This is a great development for Africa. Africa must have a healthy defence 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,” said Dr Akinwumi Adesina, the bank’s group president.

He said the time has come for Africa to quit outsourcing the healthcare security of its 1.3 billion citizens to the benevolence of others, and start looking internally for answers.

It should be remembered that although pharmaceutical products are currently manufactured in countries such as South Africa, Kenya, Morocco and Egypt, the biggest percentage of the continent’s medical needs are met through the importation of drugs.

Adesina noted that global efforts to rapidly expand the manufacturing of essential pharmaceutical products including vaccines in developing countries have been hampered in Africa by intellectual property rights protection and patents on technologies, know-how, manufacturing processes and trade secrets.

He said African pharmaceutical companies do not have the scouting and negotiation capacity, and bandwidth to engage with global pharmaceutical companies and have thus been extensively marginalized and left behind in complex global pharmaceutical innovations.

Alluding to the recent memorandum signed between 35 companies and America’s Merck to produce Nirmatrelvir, a COVID-19 drug, Adesina said none of the companies in that memorandum is African.

“No institution exists on the ground in Africa to support the practical implementation of Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) on non-exclusive or exclusive licensing of proprietary technologies, know-how and processes,” he said.

He said the foundation will help to tilt the access to proprietary technologies, knowledge, know-how and processes in favour of Africa

During the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa in February 2022, the continent’s leaders called on the AfDB to facilitate the establishment of the African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation.

They said the foundation would prioritize technologies, products and processes focused primarily on diseases that are widely prevalent in Africa, including current and future pandemics.

They further said it would build human and professional skills, the research and development ecosystem, and support upgrading of manufacturing plant capacities and regulatory quality to meet World Health Organization standards.

The Director-General of the World Health Organization, Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus, said “Establishing the African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation, by the African Development Bank, is a game changer in accelerating the access of African pharmaceutical companies to IP-protected technologies and know-how in Africa”.

With its own governance and operational structures, the institution, hosted in Rwanda, will promote and broker alliances between foreign and African pharmaceutical companies.