Pharma & Healthcare

VENTURES AFRICA – Bidvest on Wednesday insisted that Adcock Ingram shareholders be given a chance to vote for the R6.2 billion ($671 million) offer it made for 60 percent of the JSE-listed drug maker. This was despite the fact that the diversified industrial services giant’s offer of a stake in Adcock Ingram had been rejected [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – Co-Founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates is currently in Ghana to assess the country’s health systems. The world number two richest man touched down in Accra March 25, 2013 and says he is in Ghana to get firsthand information on why the country’s immunization system is working so well. “I arrive in Ghana…to [...]

VENTURES AFRICA - India’s fifth largest drugmaker by sales, Cipla Limited, has made a $512 million cash offer to acquire 100 percent ordinary shares of South Africa’s pharmaceutical manufacturer, Cipla Medpro at R10 ($1.13)per share. Cipla raised its offer by 17 percent from the initial offer it made in 2012 when it proposed to buy 51 [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – Global development agency World Bank is examining Nigeria, Ethiopia, Kenya and 19 other countries around the globe for a study on Universal Health Coverage (UHC). According to the Bank, the 22 countries were selected as samples that have significantly expanded access to health care within the last decade, with the aim of [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – Multinational construction company IBT Group, on Tuesday made a presentation to Nigeria’s Minister of Health Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, for the construction of a 1,687-bed-hospital in Abuja, valued at $650 million, to reduce perennial medical trips outside the country. According to Punch Newspaper, Nigerians on the average expend $20,000 to $40,000 per visits for [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – The Abraaj Group, one of the world’s leading private equity investors in global growth markets has announced an investment in Vine Pharmaceuticals, the largest pharmacy retail chain in Uganda. This investment was made through Abraaj’s subsidiary, the Africa Health Fund, and marks the fund’s first foray into the pharmaceutical retail and distribution [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – Cipla Medpro, the JSE-listed pharmaceutical company, would request more than the R1.9bn its Indian suitor, Cipla, has offered, Business Day (SA) reported on Friday. Cipla Medpro believes the price should reflect a lucrative government contract they have won which will increase the company’s earning power. However, Business Day reported that the board [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – Turkish 5-star hospital group Florence Nightingale Group has disclosed plans to invest in Nigeria, thus cashing in on the potential of the country’s healthcare sector. According to BusinessDay, the expansion which will see the construction of a full-fledged Florence Nightingale centre within five to ten years for the provision of educational and healthcare [...]

VENTURES AFRICA- The announcement of finding a probable cure for HIV/AIDS by the Dean of School of Basic Medical Sciences, University of Benin (UNIBEN), Prof. Isaiah Ibeh, has been welcomed with mixed reactions as medical bodies and experts express caution on such claims. Even UNIBEN authorities have declined to be part of the development as [...]

VENTURES AFRICA- The chance of finding a possible cure for the deadly Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) Virus may be closer as a Nigerian Professor Isaiah Ibeh, on Tuesday, announced the development of a new drug that can cure HIV and AIDS. According to Prof. Isaiah Ibeh, who is also the Dean, School of Basic [...]

VENTURES AFRICA- Resident Doctors in Nigeria have appealed to the Federal Government of Nigeria to exempt them from paying the newly introduced Personal Income Tax Act (PITA). The resident Doctors who spoke under the umbrella of the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) at the Ministry of Health, argued that their call duty, hazard and [...]

VENTURES AFRICA - As the mobile penetration increases in Africa, leading British telecoms company, Vodafone is collaborating with global healthcare company, GlaxoSmithKline in a novel project that will utilize text messages to increase childhood vaccination in Mozambique. The project, if successful, will create a model that can be replicated throughout the country and then scaled across Africa to [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – South Africa’s Aspen Pharmacare has bought a portfolio of 25 medicines from GlaxoSmithKline in a deal worth $263 million. Aspen announced today that the deal – originally agreed in August of this year – has now been completed as Australian authorities gave their approval, with the deal finalising at $263 million, according [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote announced his partnership with the former world’s richest man, Bill Gates, during a ceremony in Nigeria’s second largest city, Kano, to eradicate polio in the country. Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, are the only countries still battling the endemic polio. The billionaire industrialist who [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – Britian’s largest drugmaker, GlaxoSmithKline Plc (GSK) has disclosed plans to invest $1 billion in its Nigerian and Indian units, in a bid to reduce reliance on pharmaceutical products and western markets and increase shares in the fast growing emerging markets. Pharmaceutical giant, GSK said on Monday it will spend $98 million to [...]