Uganda’s leading Pharmaceutical Manufacturer, Dei BioPharma Llimited has been formally onboarded as a registered supplier under the African Pooled Procurement Mechanism (APPM), a continental procurement platform coordinated by the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC).
In an August 28 notification, Dr. Mariatou Tala Jallow, Director of the APPM at Africa CDC, indicated that Dei BioPharma had met the technical requirements for participation as a supplier under the pooled procurement arrangement.
The development gives Uganda a position within a continental effort intended to reshape how African countries procure essential health products by aggregating demand, improving purchasing power, strengthening supply security and creating more predictable markets for manufacturers on the continent.
Dr Mathias Magoola the Founder says for Dei BioPharma, the significance of the development extends beyond access to a procurement platform.
It comes as the company moves from establishing manufacturing infrastructure to building a growing portfolio of regulated products capable of serving markets beyond Uganda.
“It demonstrates an emerging pipeline of products that can potentially respond to different health needs while providing a foundation for participation in regional and continental markets,”he stated.
“It also reflects a wider shift taking place in Africa’s pharmaceutical sector, where the strategic objective is increasingly moving from dependence on imported finished products towards building domestic capabilities to develop, manufacture and supply medicines and other health technologies,”Magoola added.
However,the African Union has set a target of meeting at least 60% of Africa’s health-product needs through African manufacturing by 2040. Achieving that ambition will require not only factories, but also viable product pipelines, regulatory capacity, quality systems, skilled human capital, investment and markets capable of sustaining manufacturers.
Currently DeiBiopharm two products HYXUREA and TRENMIC, sits within the wider effort to improve access to medicines for sickle-cell disease — a condition that places a particularly heavy burden on sub-Saharan Africa.
The World Health Organization estimates that 7.74 million people globally were living with sickle-cell disease in 2021, with approximately 515,000 babies born with the condition that year. Nearly 80% of the global burden occurs in sub-Saharan Africa.
WHO’s African Region has estimated that approximately 240,000 children are born with sickle-cell disease in Africa each year. In some settings, mortality before the age of five can reach 80%, particularly where diagnosis and appropriate care are unavailable.
Dei BioPharma’s tranexamic acid 500 mg tablet, is being used in the management of serious bleeding. In 2023, approximately 260,000 women died from pregnancy- and childbirth-related causes globally, with sub-Saharan Africa accounting for about 182,000 deaths, or roughly 70% of the global total.
The 65 products submitted to NDA, the 40 approved for manufacture and the 14 approved for sale provide measurable evidence of progress along that pathway. The APPM qualification adds a new dimension by connecting this product-development trajectory to a continental procurement framework.
