…says his foundation has funded 700 healthcare entrepreneurs
Chigozie Amadi
Tony Elumelu, Chairman of United Bank for Africa Group and Founder of The Tony Elumelu Foundation has called on private and public sectors globally to prioritize appropriate capital allocation and investments health research and health technology.
Elumelu harped on innovations to drive improvements in health outcomes across Africa.
He spoke while giving his remarks at Abu Dhabi Health Forum held in United Arab Emirates on Monday.
The UBA chairman hinted that his foundation, The Tony Elumelu Foundation has funded 700 healthcare entrepreneurs, with a gender distribution ratio of 49% male to 51% female.
He noted that the empowered entrepreneurs have extended the aid to communities and their countries to advance health care delivery in Africa.
His words, “it is not just early-stage entrepreneurs and companies that make a difference. Big pharma also has a role to play here. To ensure a sustainable health future for all, there is a need to review the current patent system and effect reforms while still incentivizing innovation. There also needs to be incentives for big pharma to partner on R&D for diseases from lower income countries.
“Incentives for investing in R&D and manufacturing facilities for big pharma in developing countries is also important — so leveraging the global trade system is also an important element of global health equality.
“Even beyond pharma, the same steps should be taken to open up access to medical devices research and manufacturing, health care business model innovation, and so on.”
Elumelu stressed the need to work innovatively across social sectors to achieve results, citing the challenge of stable power supply.
He said, “high percent of health care facilities in Africa do not have reliable power supply (I think it’s around 40%) — without power, the health outcomes will be low.
“During the COVID pandemic, this was a major problem as isolation wards had no power, it was also a challenge to store vaccines sent to the continent.
“The global renewable energy sector, both thermal and hydro energy sectors should step in to address this massive energy deficiency in Africa to realize health outcomes in Africa.”
