South Africa Dr Benji Pretorius, the founder of Erada Technology Alliance and a malaria survivor himself, shares his insights into why the development of a truly effective malaria vaccine will only succeed in combating the world’s number one killer if it is integral to a ubiquitous, efficacious diagnostic programme.   Malaria, a…

Africa Writing in the July 2023 edition of DIA’s Global Forum magazine, Nevena Miletic of Roche and the IFPMA’s Africa Regulatory Network and Ian Hudson from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation look back on the progress made towards instituting an African Medicines Agency and the next steps in this important…

Africa The third and final piece in Lenias Hwenda of Medicines for Africa’s series looking back at the challenges and successes of HIV/AIDS treatments over the past 40 years and potential medical breakthroughs to come (read part one here and part two here). Here, Hwenda examines the persistent challenge of HIV/AIDS…

Africa The second in a three-part series looking back at the challenges and successes of HIV/AIDS treatments over the past 40 years and potential medical breakthroughs to come (read part one here) from Lenias Hwenda of Medicines for Africa. Here, Hwenda shines a light on the importance of preventing mother-to-child transmission…

Africa In the first of a series looking back at the challenges and successes of HIV/AIDS treatments over the past 40 years and potential medical breakthroughs to come, Lenias Hwenda of Medicines for Africa shares her personal meditations on the HIV pandemic, the impact of expanded access to antiretroviral therapy, and…

Global During the COVID-19 pandemic discussions around increasing access to medicines for low and middle-income countries (LMICs) were often centred on compulsory licensing. As a result, pharma companies were up in arms about protecting the intellectual property (IP) of their innovative medicines. But there is an alternative, says Charles Gore from…

Africa As part of a special focus on drug development and clinical research in Africa in February 2023’s DIA Global Forum magazine, Lisa Ursella Collins of Innomas Clinical Research, Leslie Sam from Leslie Sam and Associates, Jayesh Pandit, a Patient Safety Advocate from Kenya, Helen Ndagije of the Uganda National Drug…

South Africa Roughly half of Africa’s 1.1 billion people lack regular access to even the most essential medicines and most of Sub-Saharan Africa depends on imports which make up as much as 70 to 90 percent of the medicines consumed there. As the COVID-19 pandemic further demonstrated this dependence and the vulnerability…

Africa Lenias Hwenda of Medicines for Africa examines the true impact of access to medicine initiatives in Africa, noting that many of the measures takes are often cosmetic and leave a swathe of “impact bottlenecks” unaddressed. Hwenda calls for a more holistic approach, moving beyond simply bringing medicines to African countries…

South Africa Some of the top pharma news coming out of South Africa including Afrigen’s partnership with US National Institutes of Health (NIH), BioNTech’s efforts to bring an mRNA start-to-finish vaccine manufacturing network to Africa and Ascendis Health’s deal with Austell Pharmaceuticals for its pharma division.   Afrigen partners with US National Institutes…

Africa David Mukanga of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation gives an overview of the latest developments on the long road towards the creation of an African Medicines Agency and the push to establish vaccine manufacturing facilities on the continent.   Since the minimum number of 15 ratifications by African Union…

South Africa Kelly Chibale, founder of the H3D Centre at the University of Cape Town and chairman & CEO of the H3D Foundation, outlines the rationale behind the establishment of these institutions, the vital importance of health innovation in and for Africa, the potential impact of a new partnership with global pharma…