President Yoweri Museveni, on Friday, October 21, commissioned the Dei Biopharma manufacturing facility in Matugga, near Kampala.
The pharmaceutical plant will produce high-quality yet affordable medicines across a range of therapeutic areas such as cancer medicines and malaria treatment, that will make a difference to millions of families across Africa.
The facility is also the only African pharmaceutical company now manufacturing Covid-19 therapeutic medications and getting gearing to produce one billion doses of mRNA vaccines, guided by World Health Organisation standards.
Speaking at the commissioning of the UGX. 1.8 trillion pharmaceutical manufacturing facility in Kigogwa, Matugga, President Museveni praised the promoter Mr. Matthias Magoola, a chemist saying that from the very beginning, his administration told Ugandans that it wants to build a new economy that can stand on its feet [not that one of importing] and that he was very happy with Mr. Magoola for taking in the advice that has led to the formation of a state of the art locally owned biological drugs and vaccines manufacturing plant.
“I salute Magoola. Despite being persecuted, he stayed put. He is a fighter. I salute him, his family and his colleagues because this is part of the ‘ Resistance Movement’. We resist and stay on course. Now Magoola had to fight. Every African who wants to do something important neo-colonialist puppets fight him. They don’t see value in important things,” President Museveni said, noting that Magoola’s dream creates a basis for the country to handle pandemics.
“We are moving slowly. The NRM is strong. Let’s us now all be unanimous in supporting NRM’s point number five of building an independent, self-sustaining economy,” he said.
The development of the facility has been financed through partner funding from the Equity Group. The Bank provided up to $100 million in funding (more than 40% of the overall p cost) for construction, importation of hi-tech medical equipment and machines as well as working capital support. Uganda Development Bank has contributed $20 million.
In a speech at the commissioning of the multimillion-dollar facility, Dei Group Managing Director, Matthias Magoola said that the facility, a toast of Uganda’s science innovation, will produce biologic medicines listed as essential drugs, including Filgrastim, Erythropoietin, and Trastuzumab, among several others, the first such source of biosimilars in Africa.
He revealed that Dei BioPharma has secured more than 3,000 formulations giving it a wide array of potential drugs for production, vaccines, anti-cancer drugs, therapeutic proteins, peptides and cell therapy among others.
Mr. Magoola said the success of the project was largely due to the support the promoters have received from President Museveni.
“DEI BIOPHARMA is investing USD 600m in this project. Our partners, Equity Bank have given almost USD 100 million so far for the project. Thank you so much Equity Group headed by Dr Mwangi. The Uganda Development Bank has also funded us to the tune of almost USD 20m for the project. Again here credit goes to Your Excellency for the vision to capitalize UDB, especially after the Covid-19 pandemic. Much as we have raised almost half of the money needed for the project. We still urgently need funds to complete our campus and raise the remaining buildings as soon as possible to have all phases of the project completed. (Refer to the screen),” Magoola said.
“Your Excellency, our projected revenue by year 5 will exceed USD2 billion minimum. However, our target is to generate revenue of USD5 billion per year, which will increase to US$ 10 billion per year by the 10th year,” he added.
“Your Excellency, once this project is fully set up, Uganda will not be able to grow enough maize, cassava, and potatoes to supply this facility!”.
A Decade of Purpose: How Stanbic’s Schools Championship is Building Skills, Enterprise and National ConfidenceThe Chairman Equity Group Holdings Prof. Isaac Macharia lauded the Government of Uganda for having taken the bold step to support a project of this magnitude whose benefits will be felt across Africa.
“As Equity, we are aligned and want to contribute at the frontline on impactful, largescale projects that hold great promise for the future of Africa as the world begins its journey of building back better by cushioning against major world shocks such as the collapse of global supply chains that were brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic.”
Adding. “It is gratifying to note that while on one end, we know that infectious diseases are the leading causes of morbidity and mortality here in Africa, Dei Biopharma presents a pacesetter on how Uganda is taking the lead in a solutions-first approach— a clear recognition of how the challenges we face present great opportunities for investment – which are lessons that were reinforced for Africa during the COVID- 19 pandemic. Dei Biopharma is an inspiring example of how Africa can create its own regional manufacturing, supply chains, and promote regional trade to cushion itself from over reliance on global supply chains.”
In March 2022, a team of experts from the World Health Organisation (WHO) commended Dei Biopharma for establishing the manufacturing facility, saying it provides a base for Africa to effectively respond to Covid-19 and other viruses using both traditional and modern medicinal therapies.
About Dei BioPharma – Uganda
Dei BioPharma Uganda Ltd is a medical and foods (nutraceuticals & pharmaceutical) research company incorporated in Uganda, in January 2014 that produces medicines, food supplements and cosmetics.
Dei Natural Products started manufacturing hand sanitiser under the brand name Covanil and a natural ‘malaria suppressant’ Artavol which was taken prophylactically as a herbal ‘tea.’ Following refinement, the Dei anti-malarial was registered by National Drug Authority in Uganda as THA-218and is currently undergoing WHO testing and procedures towards certification in recognition of its antimalarial properties.
Dei BioPharma Uganda Ltd has now completed the first phase of what will be the first American Food & Drugs Administration (FDA) and European Medicines Agency (EMA) certified lab and production facility in Matugga area, Wakiso District in Uganda. This will allow Dei BioPharma to trailblaze in being amongst the first manufacturers producing drugs and supplements for a global market from Africa once they receive the necessary recognition and approval from the World Health Organization who were in Uganda the first week to March 2022 to inspect the progress of the manufacturing plant.
This first phase is set to produce tablets and capsules of targeted formulations based on demand. Future scale-up phases will allow for production of antibiotics and mRNA vaccine production is planned.
The pursuit for FDA/ EMA/ WHO recognition necessitated a variation of the project plan to allow FDA/EMA teams assess the project from the beginning and progressively.
On completion, the fully-fledged pharmaceutical plant will have the following units which have been provided for:
- Pharmaceutical Quality Control Centre
- Cancer Research Centre
- Drug Discovery Centre
- Bio-Tech Labs and office block (civil works)
- Pharmaceutical equipment and the HVAC System.
The initial project cost was UGX 312.8 billion (equiv. to USD 83.8M) but with variations will cost USD 88million.
