Africa’s growing biotech business relies heavily on public and foundation money, small startups, and R&D collaborations between universities and private labs. There are a lot of potential and possibilities for small innovative companies. While foundation money is great, the industry does need a jolt of private venture capital. After a 3 day trip to Cuba in 2001, former South African President Thabo Mbeki returned home inspired by the resource-poor country’s massive science and technology program and drug manufacturing capacity. Just 3 months later, he announced South Africa’s first National Biotechnology Strategy. Drugs created in South Africa cost an estimated one-tenth of what they would in the developed world. South Africa is aiming to be one of the world’s top ten biotechnology economies by 2018.
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Africa Reboots
Harmony flowing from two sides that in the past have often been discordant: Africa’s emerging entrepreneurial class and its civil-society activists. Both groups, the private sector and civil society – see poor governance as the biggest obstacle they face. So they are now working together on redefining the rules of the African game.
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