Johannesburg — Med-tech entrepreneur and Medsaf founder Vivian Nwakah spoke with AllAfrica’s Sethi Ncube about how she’s building her company to be a one-stop shop for all pharmaceuticals in Africa. Medsaf was founded to stop the movement of fake and substandard medicine in Nigeria, where it has been a challenge for decades…
What is Medsaf?
Medsaf is a pharmaceutical platform to finance and facilitate the movement of medication in Africa. We help to increase the quality, accessibility and affordability of medication to the end consumer. We work with hospitals, clinics, diagnostics, specialty centres, patients, pharmacies, the entire ecosystem, suppliers, manufacturers. we roll out technology and data analytics techniques to improve the flow of medication between all stakeholders. You can think of us a one-stop shop for all pharmaceutical needs in Africa.
Do you operate in other countries outside Nigeria?
We started in Nigeria because it’s one of the hardest markets for this issue – we started to combat fake and substandard medication issue that is affecting emerging markets. We do have expansion plans for as soon as next year to at least start the process of being in other west African countries and then from there we will move to other parts of Africa. The name Medsaf for Meds Africa is basically on that concept that we are building a pan-African company and taking best practices from some of the more challenging markets to make it easier for everybody.
I read that a friend dying from taking a fake malaria pill inspired you to start the business – what motivates you to stay in business?
I’d say I’m an internally motivated person, really interested in equality and accessibility for all, those are the two important parts of who I am. When my friend died in a very horrible way, going from hospital to hospital in the back of a car and dying in the back of a car. From my previous medical background in the USA and just comparing it to the story of his death, it just seemed like a massive injustice to me. And as I kept talking to more and more people in Nigeria, we decided to move in to the pharmaceutical industry.
How has your work been received by the communities and companies you work with?
The investor community or outside community might not really appreciate how much we do but the hospitals, pharmacies, patients, other healthcare companies, they really know how crucial and hard of a problem it is that we are solving, so we always get applause and gratitude because we really did focus on how to solve one of the hardest problems in having a healthcare company in the African context, which is procurement and distribution and last mile.
With Covid-19 vaccines, what trend have you noticed or a trend govts should take note of when it comes to the possibility of fake/substandard vaccines?
I don’t know specifically if i’d say that vaccines are particularly fake, in a typical market in Africa a lot are subsidised or they are free to the community. I’d say that most likely the biggest issue from a vaccine perspective would be the tracking and handling of the vaccine at the various different touch points. So if we are importing vaccines how do you ensure that it was kept at a temperature that it’s supposed to be to maybe the ports for example. How do you know that the vaccines when they were transferred from the port to the warehouse that they are kept at the right temperature, and when at the warehouse how do you know that the temperature for the time that it is at the warehouse has been maintained, and when it leaves the warehouse to the hospital or clinic that might be administering the vaccines, how do you know or ensure that they were still the same level of quality or standard throughout the movement of this vaccine. So I’d say that is the biggest challenge for governments to be able to ensure that they are transparent and safe supply chain mechanisms in place from the movement to storage and then dispensing of vaccines in the African context.
What has operating in the midst of a pandemic taught you to overcome future challenges?
We had a very interesting position, we were looking to start a fundraiser during the pandemic. And during the pandemic there were just hundreds of opportunities that just kept getting thrown at us from all places because now people are taking healthcare much more seriously and so for us that kind of balance, we got to really be able to hold on and ride out this wave but we still have to grow and meet the demand of the moment and so it was really about focus, focusing on what our core business is, what we set out to do and doubling down on that, that helped us to kind of navigate and get through the Covid-19 period . So i’d definitely say that that’s a business lesson … you saw the massive crash in mass prices for example so that’s an area that potentially if we had tried to just jump on every trend or train might have been in a negative situation at the end of the day. So I’m really just proud that we were able to navigate that precarious situation with just maintaining what we have and growing in the best way that we could that would be profitable for us.
How big is your company?
Right now we are at 40, we have myself, our CTO, about 25% of our team are pharmacists, 50% of them are healthcare professionals or have been trained in various parts of the healthcare industry. We have a really great team on the ground.
Some would ask how you run a tech-enabled company in Africa – how do you respond to that?
The biggest thing that we’ve always done from the very beginning was just focusing on the pain points and if you can focus on the pain that your customers or your target market might be feeling and then come up with innovative solutions to solve those pain points and you are really focused on how to improve the customer experience then i feel like you can then come up with solutions to put in place to solve these problems using technology in ways that people will feel motivated to adapt to. Because if it isn’t a problem or a big issue then people will ask you then why do I need to do anything different when it’s a really severe issue or pain point in a business then that’s how you get people to change behaviours so we’ve always focused on the customer first and how to solve their pain points as the biggest priority and everything kind of comes from that.
How has the Prosper Africa investment helped to make you do your work better?
Prosper Africa has not invested yet, they’ve been very supportive in amplifying the message of Medsaf which is extremely helpful for a start-up that’s trying to kind of tackle a global issue and they’ve definitely been an amazing amplifier of what Medsaf has been doing and also for the support that we are getting from the series – A Preparation – for example has been invaluable, they are trying to amplify the message.
What kind of support do you need to reach your full potential?
Definitely financial support and human capital are the two areas that we probably need the most support in. the more money that we have it’s so always amazing what we get money because then we are able to do so much more. For people, we are trying to solve a complex issue and we are trying to build a company from a technological perspective that needs to have advanced technology techniques in place in order to really solve the issue but if you look at Africa in general there are not too many companies that have solved or cracked this issue the past so we do find ourselves as a bit of a trailblazer, having to cut piecings together and so for that we really need good people, smart, hungry people on the team to be able to cut a figure out fixes to fit issues and get to the next level.
What are your future plans, say if you got a significant amount of money for investment what would you do from here?
We’d double down of what we are doing already. so that means being able to take more on, being able to serve more customers. We have that demand, we will just continue to execute and deploy the capital so that we can even reach larger goals.
What would you wish investors knew pertaining the line of work you are in?
This is the future. What Medsaf is doing for the pharmaceutical industry is necessary in the African context. Though its a blend of some traditional and some futuristic thinking, i think it’s what’s needed, what we are building is the hindsight and type of technology that’s needed to really create value for the average African citizen, we are the future and investors should be jumping to the opportunity to partner with us now.