The Africa Health Ventures Podcast Rowena Luk

With the mind-bending pace at which artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the way we work and live, healthcare organizations are asking themselves: what do I need to know today to seize this opportunity? In this episode, experts from the World Health Organization, IDInsight, and Reach Digital Health unpack the promise and perils of AI for health.
Today’s episode is a panel discussion first recorded live at the Marmalade Festival at the Skoll World Forum in Oxford on April 12, 2024. This is the first of a 3-part podcast series on AI for Health powered by Reach Digital Health.
Our lineup includes:
* Andy Pattison, Team Lead Digital Channels, World Health Organization
* Debbie Rogers, CEO of Reach Digital Health
* Sid Ravinutala, Director of Data Science, IDInsight
Listen now wherever you get your podcasts (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, etc.).
Stay tuned for future episodes on our mini-series about AI for Health. In our next episode, we'll speak in greater depth with the World Health Organization (WHO), the Canadian funding agency IDRC, and the Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
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Show Notes
Some of the topics we cover in this panel discussion include:
The Promise
(5m09s) - Our speakers discuss the breakthroughs now possible with AI for health, including the ability to diagnose diseases years earlier than ever before; to instantaneously disseminate essential health information across languages and countries; and the ability to provide hyper-personalized care to an individual based on their needs, body, and preferences.
The Perils
(14m11s) - While it’s tempting to deploy AI systems for health as soon as possible, these also pose very real risks in the high-stakes work of medical care. AI is known to hallucinate: to make up information that has no grounding in reality; AI is deeply biased towards rich people living in the connected world; and AI has the potential to be the most persuasive - and by extension the most manipulative - technology we have ever seen.
So… What Now?
(27m02s) - What do non-profits and social enterprises need to know today to seize the opportunity? Among the many tips and suggestions shared by our speakers, Debbie’s call to action is: get stared now. If you wait two years, you’ll be another two years behind.
Q&A
(35m37s) Towards the end of this episode, our guests field real-world questions posed by the live audience in Oxford, such as how to source diverse data, how to mitigate bias, and the real risk of magnifying the digital divide.
Learn More
* Ethics and Governance of Artificial Intelligence for Health highlights the ethical challenges and risks with the use of artificial intelligence of health and proposes six consensus principles to ensure AI works to the public benefit of all countries.
* Ada, Reach Digital Health, and the National Department of Health in South Africa launched a collaboration to provide AI-powered medical advice to mothers across the country.
* MomConnect is the South African platform to share essential health information with pregnant women across the country. It is provided by the National Department of Health in South Africa in partnership with Reach Digital Health.
* This episode is a panel discussion first recorded live at the Marmalade Festival at the Skoll World Forum in Oxford on April 12, 2024. You can watch a brief highlights video of the event here.
* Elicit is the AI assistant that can comb through the body of scientific papers to provide precise answers to research questions. Sid mentions Elicit as a counterexample to the significant risk of AI misinformation i.e. the ways in which AI can help societies in their search for truth.
* Karya provides high-quality datasets to power AI t

In 10 years, the medicine supply chain in Africa will look very different than it does today. In Part 2 of this podcast, we examine four key trends which are going to re-shape the medicine supply chain in Africa over the next decade - and shout out to a few of the entrepreneurs that are leading the charge. From regulatory changes spearheaded by the African Union to biomedical innovation requiring new pathways to patient, the medicine market is both growing and changing in Africa.
Our lineup includes:
* Mila Nepomnyashchiy, Lead Advisor, Center for Innovation and Impact, USAID
* Sidharth Rupani, Senior Advisor for Supply Chain, The Global Fund
* Yusuf Rasool, Director of Global Market Access at MSD/Merck
* Clinton De Souza, former Director of Public Health for Imperial Logistics (now DP World), Managing Partner at Celsian Consulting
* Dr. Prashant Yadav, one of the world’s leading scholars on healthcare supply chains. Dr Yadav is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Global Development, Affiliate Professor at INSEAD and Lecturer at Harvard Medical School
Listen now wherever you get your podcasts (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, etc.).
In case you missed it, don't forget to check out Part 1 of this episode, where we trace the movement of a pack of medicines from a factory in India to the shelves of a mom-and-pop pharmacy in Zambia. 
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Show Notes
Part 2 of The Medicine Supply Chain in Africa covers 3 segments:
1. The Outsized Role of Global Donors
(3m22s) - There’s a world of difference between the private sector medicine markets and the ones supported by billions of dollars of international donor funding. We hear from Mila Nepomnyashchiy of USAID about two different worlds: one for the medicines endorsed by global funding… and one for everything else.
2. Four Trends That Will Dramatically Change The Medicine Supply Chain in the Next 10 Years
(5m45s) - Trend 1: Clinton De Souza, former Director of Public Health for Imperial Logistics (now DP World), on regulatory changes from the African Union that will massively expand the size of the market.
(9m44s) - Trend 2: Yusuf Rasool, Director of Global Market Access at MSD/Merck, on vertically integrated supply chains that will reduce costs and increase access to consumers.
(13m28s) - Trend 3: Dr. Prashant Yadav of the Center for Global Development on omnichannel distribution that will meet patients where they live and work.
(16m46s) - Trend 4: Sidharth Rupani, Senior Advisor for Supply Chain at The Global Fund, on the golden age of biomedical innovation that will challenge our existing ideas of both ‘medicines’ and ‘supply chain’.
3. Social Entrepreneurs Leading the Charge
(20m31s) - Dr. Prashant Yadav highlights a handful of social enterprises that are leading the charge for change.
Learn More
* USAID’s Global Health Supply Chain Program is a US$9.5 billion program with support from PEPFAR. The follow-in contract may be as much as US$17 billion.
* The Global Fund provides extensive support to countries in procuring low-cost, priority medicines. Every year it spends about US$2 billion to procure medicines for HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria.
* The Africa Medical Supplies Platform is a pooled procurement mechanism spearheaded by the African Union
* The African Medicines Agency seeks to create a common regulatory environment for medicines across Africa
* The African Continental Free Trade Agreement could create the largest free trade area in the world
* mPharma provides medicines to pharmacies, but does not require payment until those medicines are sold. This helps pharmacies to stock more medicines by de-risking the need for upfront cash.
* Maisha Meds is providing forecasting, sourcing, and other technology support

What does it take to move a pack of medicines from a factory in India to the shelves of a mom-and-pop pharmacy in Zambia? In this episode, we explore the world of the medicine supply chain in Africa, as told by the people who run it. Along the way, we unpack the market dynamics which limit access to low-cost, essential medicines.
Our lineup includes:
* Yusuf Rasool, Director of Global Market Access at MSD/Merck
* Clinton De Souza, former Director of Public Health for Imperial Logistics (now DP World), Managing Partner at Celsian Consulting
* Michael Moreland, CEO and Founder, Field Intelligence
* Sidharth Rupani, Senior Advisor for Supply Chain, The Global Fund
* Mila Nepomnyashchiy, Lead Advisor, Center for Innovation and Impact, USAID
* Dr. Prashant Yadav, Senior Fellow at the Center for Global Development, Affiliate Professor at INSEAD and Lecturer at Harvard Medical School
Listen now wherever you get your podcasts (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, etc.).
Stay tuned for Part 2, when we look at the future trends which are going to dramatically change this supply chain and highlight a few of the new ventures which are leading the way.
Connect with Africa Health Ventures
📰 Sign up for our newsletter to stay informed about what’s going on with healthcare ventures in Africa
🪙 Nominate a startup for seed funding
👍 Follow us on LinkedIn
🎙️ Subscribe to this podcast
In this episode, we cover
* (2m54) - Setting the stage: we introduce several of the key actors in the medicine supply chain, including manufacturers, distributors, and pharmacies. Dr. Prashant Yadav highlights the key role of Ministries of Health as well as the disruptive influence of social entrepreneurs.
* (8m27s) - Yusuf Rasool of MSD/Merck describes the role of large pharmaceutical companies and why it is difficult for a large multinational to operate directly in 54 different African countries.
* (10m57s) - Clinton De Souza digs into two of the structural problems in the medicines market which makes it difficult for distributors to deliver low-cost essential medicines.
* (19m07s) - From the perspective of Five Star Pharmacy in Zambia, we look at the working capital gap which prevents small pharmacies from making the full range of medicines available to people.
* (21m49s) - Michael Moreland of Field Intelligence describes the role of social entrepreneurs and embedded financing in allowing small pharmacies to increase product availability.
* (29m17s) - Recap of the episode so far and teaser for Part 2
Learn More
* Health Product Supply Chains in Developing Countries - This 2015 paper from Dr. Prashant Yadav summarizes the key actors and common challenges of medicine supply chains in Sub-Saharan Africa.
* How Local Innovation Can Drive the Global Development Agenda - This 2023 piece from Dr. Prashant Yadav highlights the importance of new social entrepreneurs in addressing gaps in the private and public medicine supply chain.
* Innovations in Digitizing Health Supply Chains in Africa - This 2023 market intelligence report from Salient Advisory highlights some of the key areas of the medicine supply chain where startups in Africa are most active.
* How MSD/Merck is improving access to healthcare - This page highlights a few of the affordability solutions that MSD/Merck’s Access to Medicines team is working on around the world.
* Imperial Logistics is one of the largest medicine distributors on the African continent.
* Five Star Pharmcies is a chain of retail pharmacies in Zambia founded by Lloyd Matowe with the support of Clinton De Souza.
* Field Intelligence is a social enterprise providing planning, fulfilment, and financing of pharmaceuticals to over 35,000 points of care in Nigeria and Kenya, including government clinics, retail pharmacies and drug shops, hospitals and telehealth providers.
* Was the $9.5B health supply chain 'a waste of USAID's money'? - Earlier this month, Devex published a(nother) searing indictment of USAID

Unlocking access to quality healthcare in Africa by 2030 will require radical innovations. Join veteran digital health / healthtech entrepreneur Rowena Luk in conversation with healthcare industry leaders and innovators every quarter to strategize on what the future of healthcare in Africa will look like. This podcast is for social entrepreneurs, impact investors, and global health professionals who need to stay ahead of the rapidly changing landscape of healthcare in Africa.
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Chuck Slaughter is the founder of Living Goods, which supports over 10,000 digitally-empowered community health workers who are reducing child deaths by over 25% at an annual cost of under $4 per person. As a Senior Advisor to TPG Rise (a $10 billion impact investing platform), Director of the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, and a successful entrepreneur, Chuck has a rich perspective on how digital is reshaping aid and development work. Tune in today to hear Chuck’s guidance on whether to ‘build or buy’ tech, why nonprofits struggle to deliver the best technology products, and how governments and the private sector need to work together to scale high-impact innovations.

Chuck serves on the boards of Yale’s School of Management, Tidepool, Reach Health, and the Horace W Goldsmith Foundation. He received a Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, an Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award, a Draper Richards Kaplan Fellowship, and is a World Economic Forum Social Entrepreneur of the Year. 

A Few Highlights
(6m27s) - How Chuck and Living Goods became digital first
(13m45s) - The DESC metaphor of Living Goods: Digital, Equipped, Supervised and Compensated
(22m01s) - Working with new technologies: the 'build or buy' debate
(28m24s) - Why nonprofits struggle to build great tech
(32m09s) - The digital transformation of aid: grantmaking through the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation
(37m08s) - Financing scale: how governments and the private sector need to work together
(40m19s) - Rapid fire questions, shoutouts, and recommendations

You can learn more about Living Goods on their website at livinggoods.org. 

 

Let us know what you thought of this episode on LinkedIn or Twitter (@AidEvolved). You can also access show notes at AidEvolved.com.


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Dr. Agnes Binagwaho is a pediatrician, former Minister of Health of Rwanda, Senior Lecturer at Harvard University, Advisor to the Director-General of the WHO, and co-founder of the University of Global Health Equity. 

She joins us today to talk about the role of technology in the remarkable transformation of Rwanda’s health system post-genocide. 

What are the failed promises of health technology? How has data been a North Star to her work? And what does it take to show the world that Rwanda today stands for truth?

 

Highlights

(02m59s) - When health data is held hostage 
(04m21s) - HIV is a curse that ushered in the era of electronic medical records
(10m06s) - How epidemiological data supports effective health systems governance
(16m10s) - Using Twitter to take a stand
(20m54s) - Whose data do you trust?

 

Submit a question or comment to our mailbag, and we’ll discuss it on a future show. Emails or voice recordings can be sent to podcast@aidevolved.com 

Connect with us on LinkedIn or Twitter (@AidEvolved) and access show notes at https://AidEvolved.com

 


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