Bio Usawa and Axmed have entered into a strategic collaboration to expand patient access to advanced, affordable biologic medicines across African health systems. The collaboration brings together Bio Usawa’s capability to develop and manufacture high-quality biologics, including monoclonal antibodies and biosimilars, with Axmed’s technology-enabled marketplace for medicines procurement across low- and middle-income countries.

The collaboration will initially include a focus on ophthalmology and retinal diseases, an area where access to advanced biologic therapies remains a significant challenge. Bio Usawa’s lead ophthalmology product, BioUcenta™ (ranibizumab biosimilar), will provide an important starting point for exploring more efficient pathways to treatment access.

“Manufacturing is only one part of the access equation,” said Dr. Patrick Lukulay, Chief Operating Officer of Bio Usawa. “We need to make sure that medicines made in Africa can move efficiently through the health systems that serve African patients. Working with Axmed gives us a strong partner on that side of the equation. Together, we can connect manufacturing, demand and procurement in a way that makes access more sustainable.”

For eligible healthcare buyers, the Axmed marketplace will provide a digital procurement pathway through which products such as BioUcenta™ can be accessed, subject to applicable market, regulatory and purchasing requirements. Buyers can register on the Axmed platform (https://app.axmed.com/signup), search for ranibizumab, review relevant product and purchasing information, select the required quantity and submit orders, with fulfillment and delivery managed through the applicable supply and logistics arrangements.

By improving demand visibility and procurement efficiency, the collaboration aims to reduce costs, minimize supply shortages and ensure that more patients can access life-saving biologic medicines when they need them. The collaboration will also allow Bio Usawa to contribute to the continued development of Axmed’s marketplace platform based on the needs of an African biomanufacturer and healthcare systems across the continent.

“Ensuring access to medicines requires us to think about the full journey from bench to bedside,” said Felix Ohnmacht, Chief Commercial Officer of Axmed. “Bio Usawa is doing important work to build high-quality biologics capabilities on the African continent. Our role is to help close the remaining gap, connecting that innovation and manufacturing capacity with demand through more efficient procurement and resilient supply chains, so that these medicines ultimately reach the patients who need them.”

Beyond providing a digital procurement pathway, Axmed’s platform is designed to address some of the structural challenges that make medicine procurement fragmented and inefficient across emerging markets. By bringing demand from multiple healthcare buyers into a common marketplace, generating greater visibility into purchasing needs and connecting that demand with qualified supply, Axmed can help manufacturers plan more effectively while enabling buyers to access products through more transparent and efficient procurement. The platform also creates opportunities to aggregate demand across institutions and markets, helping build the volumes and predictability needed to support more sustainable access and pricing models for advanced biologic medicines.

The collaboration reflects a shared belief that Africa’s biotechnology future should extend beyond dependence on imported medicines and include the development, manufacture and efficient delivery of increasingly complex therapies on the continent.