Friday, 11 January 2013

Aid-funded business trip in Kenya and Uganda




For two weeks in late November and early December 2012 I was part of the UK’s Trade and Investment ‘aid-funded business’ delegation which took me first to Nairobi, Kenya to meet the large donors (World Bank, Department for International Development, African Development Bank, United Nations Family) and then on to Kampala, Uganda (to meet the same folks, with more of a UN focus).  The idea was that the twelve or so UK SMEs represented by our motley crew would be able to find out more about the not-particularly-straightforward way these donors procure business, and we would all, in some way, benefit by increasing UK exports.  

I’m only now just getting round to posting this note, which is inspired by two new friends I made whilst on the trip – the CEO and his long-time Director of a UK based health medical diagnostics company called Omega Diagnostics

This company has been in existence for 25 years and produces (in Scotland and a couple of other regional sites in England) niche diagnostic health equipment, for use particularly in sub-Saharan Africa.  

My two new friends were showcasing a specific product called CD4, which was essentially a small white rectangular box about the size of my finger. CD4 is used to test a patient’s blood sample, and simply requires a tiny finger prick blood sample which is processed right then and there within 45 minutes. After the chemical magic has taken place, a simple ‘treat’ or ‘don’t treat’ message appears, telling a patient whether their immunity levels have decreased beyond a critical threshold, and therefore whether they need to seek out HIV retro-viral medicine.   

The product is brilliant because it is sold for less than $5 USD per unit, is simple to use and portable, is diagnostically definitive, and the results following the test are easy to understand for the patient.  If you are a villager in a remote part of Africa you can now test yourself with a CD4 box, without having to walk ten miles to a regional hospital for a trained nurse.  Villagers with HIV can self-monitor regularly and affordably, and will now be able to move quickly to obtain antiviral drugs the moment the test shows their immune levels dropping beneath a certain critical level.   

What’s very clever I think about Omega’s approach is that they have picked an area of real medical importance, thought about the everyday barriers that patients in Africa tend to face (long walking distances, no transport), and combined the science and technology and manufacturing know-how to solve this puzzle.  Commercially they have first-mover advantage – they tell me there is no other company in the world which currently produces such a health kit diagnostic. The chemistry behind the diagnostic test was developed by an Australian Laboratory and Omega worked with them and provided the IP and facilities to help scale production. Omega is now in the Sales phase, approaching donors specifically interested in reducing AIDS HIV to buy this kit. Pharmaceutical companies see it as an advantage because for a very small amount of upfront subsidy cost they can get patients onto the much more expensive retro-viral drugs.  CD4, if it’s taken up by donors and used in the way it is intended to be, should basically help reduce the numbers of patients lost to care (which is sadly, I’m told, still very high across Africa). There are still an estimated 33m people with HIV in Africa, (quite likely to be an underestimate).  

It pleases me to think of scientific and manufacturing innovation like this coming out of the UK, and I wonder if Omega Diagnostics is the shape of companies to come as globalisation increases and our world gets smaller; relatively small numbers of highly specialised employees, collaborating with others in Australia, manufacturing in the UK and in India, and distributing and targeting customers in Africa.  I’m not at all prone to giving stock tips but Omega is actually listed on London’s AIM, so anyone who wants to invest in Omega can do so.  I believe you’d be investing in a company that has its heart in the right place and is in a very good position to help reduce the some of the considerable suffering caused by AIDS. If only more companies could be like this, and if only more donors would take the time to actually attend travelling business delegation meetings and hear what is actually out there in the marketplace. 

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