Accelerating Africa's Pharmaceutical Industry Through Data Aquisition

The lackluster of Africa's Pharmaceutical Industry is by no means a shortage of science research, capital ( there are venture capitalist, angel donors, charity organization and even some pharma companies who would be willing to invest where results are eminent), regulatory agencies inefficiency, or investment opportunities but the lack of proper decision analytic tools to forecast growth and narrow down specific areas of growth potential, streamline cost, reduce counterfeiting and grammatically increase end user outcome. 

"Big Data" is a tool now being used by several industries to drive business decisions from Health Care to Education. But first, to be able to use Data for statistical analysis so as to achieve better business results one most have access to data. This is where Data Acquisition comes in. Multinational companies are now rapidly moving into Africa and developing markets like , Brazil, India South Africa to gain market share. Africa is also very ripe for business. Rapid growth of information technology is making information readily available. 

Informatics (clinical informatics, bioinformatics, health  informatics etc) has the potential to drive Africa's pharmaceutical industry to new heights. In countries that are well ahead in the industry, Big Pharmas are already tapping into existing data to drive the drug development process from discovery to marketing.

Africa Pharmaceutical Industry should not be left behind and  should move with the "flow". It is no doubt that with the wide variety of Africa's flora, there are thousands of ingredients that can be investigated for possible use in medicine.   

"Open Science" might just be the one thing Africa was waiting for to unleash its potentials in life sciences. Now researchers can access thousands of research work from around the globe through portals on the internet for free of charge.

Online Research Platforms are also a great tool that Africa can use to advance its pharmaceutical industry. Today, there are platforms that offer services from researchers and service vendors where anyone (yes anyone) can develop a drug from discovery to marketing from a laptop. Such platforms are also a tool which anyone interested in fighting the numerous diseases in the Motherland.