Adebayo Alonge – an avid advocate of raising awareness about the issue of falsified medicines and one of the key speakers of our event ‘Digital Natives Fight Fake Medicines’ which took place on Monday, 20th May, along the side lines of the World Health Assembly, is taking part in the new blog ‘5 questions to…’ by Fight the Fakes founding partner the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations (IFPMA)!
Adebayo was born in Nigeria and fell victim to a fake drug when he was just a teenager. He went on to become a pharmacist and today he has over eight years’ experience in market development and strategy consulting across Africa, working with BCG, BASF, Roche and Sanofi. In late 2017, he co-founded the tech start-up RxAll and developed a handheld nano-scanner which allows users to verify the authenticity and quality of medicines and hence prevent them from taking any falsified and poor-quality drugs.
In IFPMA’s “5 questions to…” new blog series he talks about the importance of bringing universal health coverage (UHC) to his native Africa, how to build up and finance local healthcare systems, foster digital health solutions and fight fake medicines.
‘The absence of UHC in rural areas has left the field free for unscrupulous quacks to dispense fake medicines and even carry out minor surgeries in non-sterile wards, using the cheapest of supplies and materials. Rural people often rely on herbs even though they know western medicine is more effective but it’s not on offer due to poor infrastructure and/or too costly.’
