Friday, 29 March, 2024
HomeWeekly RoundupTwo Ghanaian health tech start-ups win top international awards

Two Ghanaian health tech start-ups win top international awards

Ghana’s long unsung health tech sector is getting global validation with two of its most promising start-ups being named among five winners for one of the most prestigious social enterprise awards in the world.

Quartz Africa reports that Accra-based mPedigree and mPharma will each receive $1.5m from this year’s Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship – they were among just five winners from around the world and two of the three from Africa. The prize will enable them to build their scale and grow impact.

The report says MPedigree uses a simple text message code that helps customers verify the authenticity of medicines. Across the developing world, fake medicine is a widespread problem, which leads to deaths and is a major contributor to drug resistance, one of the world’s most pressing public health concerns. “We need supporters like Skoll who truly understand the significance of what we have built, share our boldness and vision, and see our model as by far the best way forward”, says Bright Simons, mPedigree’s co-founder and 2015 Quartz Africa Innovator.

On a mission to disrupt Big Pharma on the continent and other emerging markets, mPharma manages inventory for small independent pharmacies and their suppliers. The report says the six-year old start-up acquired Haltons, Kenya’s second largest pharmaceutical chain, last month, reversing a trend of start-ups being bought by more established businesses.

The acquisition, the start-up’s first foray into East Africa will add 20 pharmacies to the 250 that already use mPharma’s technology platform in 11 cities in four countries (Ghana, Nigeria, Zambia and Zimbabwe). mPharma has received financial backing from influential Silicon Valley investors as it focuses on its ultimate ambition of lowering the cost of drugs for ordinary patients across Africa.

“Our plans remain the same and that is to expand the number of pharmacies we manage so we can create more access points for patients,” Gregory Rockson, founder of mPharma and 2018 Quartz Africa Innovator is quoted in the report as saying.

This latest award for two different Ghanaian health technology companies, will be seen as a significant validation of Ghana’s tech space which is often overshadowed on the continent by bigger markets in Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa. The country’s nascent tech space is also set for more as Google this month officially opened its first artificial intelligence centre in Africa in the capital, Accra.

The report says the third African winner for the Skoll Award was Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator which operates in South Africa and Rwanda.

[link url="https://qz.com/africa/1598303/skoll-awards-ghanas-mpharma-and-mpedigree-win-awards/"]Quartz Africa report[/link]

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