Making Medicines in Africa

In sub-Saharan Africa, although international funding has dramatically improved access to HIV and TB medication, people’s access to reliable essential medicines remains generally dreadful. In response, OU and African researchers have been working together to investigate whether improved manufacturing of pharmaceuticals in Africa could offer an effective solution, closing this gap and creating a path to more accessible and sustainable health care for all. (You can read more about our findings on our Making Medicines in Africa blog.

Now, 11 members of IKD and our associates have contributed to a landmark free open access book, Making Medicines in Africa, which sets out to unpack the question of what it might take to make this happen.

The book builds on IPHSP, an ESRC-funded OU collaborative project with Tanzanian and Kenyan colleagues on industrial development and health system linkages, and will feed into local policy debate. Making Medicines in Africa, however, also widens the scope, inviting additional African scholars, scientists, manufacturers and policymakers together with others from the UK, Brazil and India to join the debate.

It has been demonstrated that Africa can produce good medicines. A successful pharmaceutical industry, however, is no guarantor of good health care – India has grown a successful industry while leaving many of its people without competent care. Yet, as the book argues, the technological, industrial, intellectual, organisational and research-related capabilities associated with the development of pharmaceutical production are an essential foundation if the African subcontinent is to tackle the health needs of its population.

Read Making Medicines in Africa (free pdf download or e-book).