The first step in fighting an infection or disease is to label it correctly, i.e., to get an accurate diagnosis. If you live in a high-income country or a fairly well-developed urban area, this doesn’t seem like much of a problem. You visit the nearest lab or call a health professional to your home to…

Prefab is not a fad: The history of modular construction   People often have the misconception that prefabricated modular construction is an unstable and cheap quick fix. They couldn’t be more wrong.   Prefabricated construction, in pharma and beyond, is far from a passing trend. It has been part of the engineering and construction industry…

Excessive thirst, the need to urinate frequently, tiredness, weight loss, blurred vision. The onset of symptoms like these often indicates the development of diabetes and a lifetime of managing high blood glucose and related health issues. Think kidney failure, stroke, heart attacks.   A universal problem?   In 2021, 529 million people across the world…

The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, or the SDGs: 17 goals and many more targets for the world to meet by 2030.   Goal 3 is to “ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages”.   Target 3.3 is to end the scourge of communicable diseases, a significant one being the HIV/AIDS…

Cleanrooms and other spaces involved in the production of pharmaceuticals must be, well, clean, to say the least. A gust of wind bringing in dust and other outdoor pollutants? Personnel operating the machines sneezing or shedding clothing fibres or skin flakes? Chemicals emitted by building materials? All of these are big no-nos. That’s why it’s…

In the late 1990s and the early 2000s, Eli Lilly did something which wasn’t very common. The Big Pharma company transferred technology for two tuberculosis (TB) drugs to pharma manufacturers in South Africa. This early instance of tech transfer in the pharma industry in Africa effectively helped fight the multi-drug resistant TB problem.   More…

As the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) sets its sights on an ambitious target of fulfilling 60% of the continent’s vaccine needs through local production by 2040, a major obstacle lies in the startling lack of pharmaceutical manufacturing infrastructure across the region. Despite being home to over 1.3 billion people, Africa…

Gene therapy interventions stand front and centre in healthcare innovation.   As the most rapidly growing therapeutic modality, over 50 new in vivo and ex vivo gene therapy launches are planned for the next few years. At present, pretty much all viral vectors for gene therapy are one of three types: adeno-associated virus (AAV) vectors,…

Ah South America. The land of the samba. And the tango. And Carlos Santana. And the greatest of great footballers. And the Amazon rainforest. And capoeira. And chimichurri. And asado. And carnitas. And pao de queijo. Okay, enough with the food already.   How about also calling it the land of civil unrest? And some…

  Two birds, one stone The USA, the UK, wealthy European countries, and other large economies appear to be nearing their saturation points. According to an analysis by McKinsey & Company, while many of these large markets are experiencing slow or stagnating economic growth, Africa presents one of the only pharmaceutical markets where exponentially high…