Post by Dr Matthias Magoola

Africa imports 85% of its medicines and almost 99% of the ingredients needed to make them including something as basic as starch. For years, this dependence has kept our medicines expensive, our manufacturers uncompetitive, and our farmers disconnected from global value chains. Yesterday on air with NBS Television I shared why we built Uganda’s largest starch and API production facility and why this moment is bigger than a single factory Every month, pharmaceutical manufacturers like us import containers of starch, glucose, maltose and other excipients at enormous cost Yet our own farmers grow cassava The very crop from which these products are derived in some of the most fertile soil in the world, with almost no need for fertilizers This is our natural competitive advantage. By producing our own APIs and excipients, we reduce manufacturing costs, strengthen local supply chains, and finally position Uganda and Africa to compete with prices coming from India and China But the transformation goes beyond pharmaceuticals. For decades, farmers in Busoga have relied almost entirely on sugarcane. But sugarcane provides only two outputs: sugar and power. Cassava provides more than 100 industrial products. And when grown commercially, cassava can give farmers three times the income of sugarcane. At Dei BioPharma, we are not asking farmers to switch crops based on promises. We have invested $50 million (Shs 182 billion) in this plant. We farm over 1,000 acres of cassava ourselves. And we invite farmers to see the results, the yields, and the market with their own eyes. This is only Phase One. Our larger vision a $10 billion integrated industrial city will allow Uganda to manufacture, certify and export products that meet USFDA and EMA standards The world needs starch, glucose, fructose and APIs. Africa should not be importing what it can produce competitively at home. This is how we build a new industrial future, farmer by farmer, factory by factory, and product by product. Africa has the raw materials. Africa has the talent. Now Africa is building the capacity. Dr Matthias Magoola DEI BioPharma Ltd

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