A renowned African healthtech business, Field, launched a route-to-market service to offer novel therapeutics to address maternal mortality, newborn and child health, and nutrition.
This program will use Field’s distribution, finance, and proprietary technology. The latter now supports a network of more than 40,000 healthcare practitioners in urban and rural parts of Nigeria and Kenya.
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Revolutionizing Healthcare: The Gates Foundation’s Impact
Field’s commitment to introducing new medicines and supply chain reform to address Africa’s most pressing health issues is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s initial funding of $11 m.
Since its start in 2015, Field has made it easier for over 800 million health actions to happen in more than 60 therapeutic areas. These include family planning, HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis. They are commencing in Kenya and Nigeria, possibly spreading to other areas.
The field will use its unique skills in dealing with complicated distribution lines to speed up the time it takes for new therapies and technologies to reach the market.
Private healthcare providers, hospitals, and State and Federal healthcare authorities will undergo a massive digital transformation with financing possibilities to improve operations and purchasing. Healthcare providers can also profit from last-mile deliveries and pharma-grade refrigeration.
A coalition of governments, manufacturers, and other stakeholders will strengthen one of the continent’s most ambitious maternal health programs.
Innovations in Maternal Health: A New Hope
One of the biggest problems in healthcare on the continent is the death rate for mothers. It is 45 times more likely for a woman in Africa to die while giving birth than in Europe. WHO says that 69% of all maternal deaths in the world happened in Africa, with Nigeria alone being responsible for 29% of all maternal deaths in the world in 2020.
Field’s service will offer African expectant mothers access to emerging therapies like heat-stable carbetocin and calibrated drapes, addressing postpartum haemorrhage and related complications and highlighting the need for improved maternal health services.
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Field, a health technology company, has announced a new initiative to improve public health through technology. The initiative, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, aims to improve access to quality care and maternal and child survival in every setting. Field believes that without coordinated systems and processes, progress in healthcare delivery will slow or slip, highlighting the importance of healthcare technology companies in this challenging economic climate.
Field, its funders, and we are pleased to work on this technology-powered infrastructure model for public health care.
Along with this new project, Field is expanding its technological solutions globally. Its Field Supply platform is Africa’s largest pharmaceutical supply chain.
Shelf Life distributes over 3,000 quality products in over 50 therapeutic areas to over 2,500 pharmacies and hospitals in 24 cities in Nigeria and Kenya, including government facilities, large hospital systems, retail chains, insurance companies, and family-owned drug stores.
The platform offers trade financing for priority therapies and equipment to overcome working cash constraints that prevent medical intervention investment.