Bio Usawa, a private biotech company focused on boosting drug access in Africa, inked a deal with cleanroom and laboratory construction specialist Pacific Environmental Technologies to design, produce and deliver self-contained modular bio manufacturing units to Rwanda.
The deal is part of a longtime effort by Bio Usawa co-founder Menghis Bairu, M.D., and others to bolster drug manufacturing on the African continent, which has a history of lacking necessary infrastructure and supply chains to enable widespread access to advanced therapies.
Although no financial details of the deal were disclosed, the mobile drug manufacturing units are expected to be delivered to Kigali, Rwanda, by the end of the year, the company said in a May 22 press release.
When delivered, the production pods will focus on manufacturing monoclonal antibody therapies for diabetic macular edema, with future plans to produce cancer and immunology drugs.
“In a world where state-of-the-art, life-saving drugs for cancer and infectious diseases are not available to or affordable for a large majority of the world’s population, this manufacturing module will allow us to rapidly meet the needs of these patients,” Bairu said in the release. “We are building for scale, for resilience, and for the future of global health access, starting here in Africa.”
Prior to Bio Usawa, Bairu was founder of Serenus Biotherapeutics, which had focused on providing innovative therapies to emerging African countries. It ceased operations in January.
Although a persistent issue, the dearth of drug manufacturing and treatment availability in Africa was spotlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic, spurring some global drugmakers to make investments on the continent.
Just a year ago, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) committed up to $145 million to bolster BioNTech’s efforts to establish mRNA vaccine R&D, plus clinical and commercial manufacturing, at the company’s facility in Kigali. The investment was part of a goal to establish an “end-to-end vaccine ecosystem” on the continent.
That effort followed news in 2023 that the Gates Foundation would spread $40 million between a handful of companies—including Belgium’s Quantoom, Senegal’s IPD and South Africa’s Biovac—to develop and crank out mRNA vaccines for Africa and beyond. The same year, the WHO officially opened an mRNA vaccine hub in Cape Town, South Africa.
However, not all efforts have come to pass. In 2024, Moderna pulled back from its pledge to build a $500 million manufacturing facility in Kenya, noting that it hadn’t received any vaccine orders from the African continent since 2022. That news upset the Africa CDC, which castigated Moderna as shifting the blame onto the continent.