The challenges and opportunities surrounding Africa becoming a clinical trials global force were discussed on day one of CTS Europe.
Révérien Uwacu speaking about the five African countries that have a WHO maturity level of three, signifying high capability of overseeing clinical trials. Image credit: Jenna Philpott/GlobalData.
Over 18% of the global population lives in Africa, but less than 3% of clinical trials are conducted there. Is there an opportunity for clinical trials to be conducted in Africa? Experts at the ongoing Clinical Trial Supply (CTS) Europe meeting say the answer is yes, but not without its challenges.
Leading the session, “Increasing diversity: supply chain considerations for clinical trials in Africa”, Révérien Uwacu, clinical trial supply management consultant for the pharma company UCB, emphasised the importance of diversity in clinical trials, for scientific, moral, and medical reasons.
Révérien cited logistical challenges and regulatory complexities in trial supply management, as some of the reasons behind this lack of diversity. Despite this, increased regulatory support and interest in local research sites can increase the potential of clinical trials on the continent: “Africa is an untapped market. It’s a potential target for global health – so this makes Africa strategically very important,” he said.
Africa also has the highest disease burden in the world, including serious diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, acute respiratory infections, and diarrheal diseases, which all have high mortality rates, meaning the opportunity for innovation and development can make a big impact to the population.
Clinical trial readiness
Five African countries (South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt, Tanzania, and Ghana) are currently at maturity level three for either vaccines or medicine on the World Health Organizations (WHO) global benchmarking tool that uses a scale of 1–4. This signifies that they have an established robust and integrated regulatory systems capable of overseeing and ensuring quality.
“There are so many organisations like the continental free trade area (CFTA) and African medicines agency (AMA) – they are steadily working to find innovations to bolster infrastructure and reshape policymaking to make Africa beyond the standards that we are talking about here,” said Révérien on regulatory systems.

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