Dr. Yaw Adu-Adjei Gyamfi, CEO, Danadams Pharmaceuticals Ltd. By Utche Okwuosah

Dr. Yaw Adu-Adjei Gyamfi, CEO of Danadams Pharmaceuticals Limited

Dr Gyamfi has been striving to see that his recent breakthrough in the manufacture of ARV drugs gets the necessary certification to be able to make them available to Ghanaians at an affordable price despite his company’s financial constraints in overcoming their peculiar industry challenges.

In the past, his company has helped to plug intermittent drugs supply gap from international donors on an ad hoc basis. However, his firm is now of the view that the current funding difficulties being experienced by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund) can be turned into an opportunity for growth of the local pharmaceutical manufacturing industry in Ghana.

The Global Fund, which is a perfect example of Public-Private Partnership (PPP) success, is a unique, international financing institution dedicated to attracting and disbursing resources to fight HIV and AIDS, TB and malaria. Following media reports in 2011 about the fund's losses, the organisation started falling short in meeting its programs as donors started with holding funding. For instance, the fund’s five-year support for the treatment of about 49,000 people living with HIV/AIDS in Ghana ended in April 2011 and is not expected to be renewed until 2013.

Dr Gyamfi is not exactly optimistic that the external funding will recover from the Global Fund scandal and he believes that the situation rather presents an ideal opportunity for the Government of Ghana to begin to look inward.

“All we have been seeing in the past ten years or so is a government at the mercy of imported drugs while the local manufacturing capacity continues to lay waste,” Dr. Gyamfi lamented in an interview with GB&F at his office at the Spintex Road, Accra.

“We should begin to take our fate in our hands and there could not be a better opportunity than this, now that we are anticipating shortfalls from The Global Fund,” he maintained stoically. As a matter of fact, anticipating the uncertainties that lay ahead, especially affecting middle-to low income nations like Ghana, UNAIDS, is already calling on benefitting countries to begin to invest more themselves into the collective effort rather than continue to depend on outside assistance.

Danadams is the only pharmaceutical company that manufacturers HIV ARV drugs locally in Ghana. ARV treatment, according to UNAIDS, is now recognised as preventing HIV transmission by reducing viral load.

Launched in 2005, Danadams currently engages over 250 employees and produces five ARV drugs which are yet to be prequalified by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to allow it become a part of the approved HIV/AIDS drugs that can be purchased with funding from the Global Fund.

“WHO prequalification simply means the WHO and its international and local regulatory expert partners certify your drugs. We initially submitted an expression of interest indicating that we wanted our products WHO prequalified, however, we still have to have them undergo clinical studies”,
Dr Gyamfi said.

He added: “This involves two types of studies, one of which is presenting a hurdle at the moment because of the absence of the required medical lab facilities in Ghana to do it and the cost involved in conducting the study outside. Because of this, we have not yet gotten the WHO prequalification, but we are still working on that.”

However, the drugs’ quality has been certified by an independent lab in South Africa as potent and meeting the required standard.

Yet, Dr. Gyamfi feels that the current opportunistic situation is not necessarily sustainable and is demanding definite and proactive support from the government which could guarantee more of a long term off-take agreement.

“If we are the only manufacturers of antiretroviral drugs in the country, I think that the government should take a close look at us and look for ways to give us support,” he said, adding that, “government can guarantee us a significant market for our products which would have been tested internationally and found to meet all standards.”

“With the guaranteed market, we can walk to any bank and be able to raise additional capital to produce more and have the economy of scale ultimately bring down the cost of the drugs, guaranteeing that more people access them. We are not asking the government to give us money. All we need is such market guarantees that would encourage potential financiers to make the required funds available to us. That is what the
public-private partnership is all about”, the Danadams CEO explained.