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Health technology company, Axmed, has raised $2 million in seed funding. The round, led by&nbsp;<a href="https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/12/founderful/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Founderful Ventures</a>, is coming six months after the startup attracted a $5 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to make maternal and child healthcare available in high-priority countries. 
Led by a Nigerian, Emmanuel Akpakwu who serves as the CEO, the Swiss-based startup is focused on helping medically underserved countries get the high-quality drugs that they need. The startup said the latest funding will be used to get the initial version of its product fully vetted, ahead of a full launch later this year. 
Speaking of the problems and how the startup understands them, the CEO and Co-founder told Forbes that he has seen the problems up close, growing up in Nigeria and therefore is in the best position to understand them. 
“I’ve seen many of the problems first hand. People just can’t get the medicines they need, simply because they happen to live in the wrong place,” he said. 
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<h4 id="meet-axmed" class="wp-block-heading">Meet Axmed</h4> 
Axmed was founded by Emmanuel Akpakwu,&nbsp;Felix Ohnmacht&nbsp;and&nbsp;Sofia Radley-Searle. Akpakwu previously served at Novartis as the Chief Commercial Officer of the sub-Saharan Africa region. While serving in that capacity, he came in contact with the challenges that disincentivize manufacturers from scaling into these markets. This was where the idea that is now Axmed was conceived. 
The World Health Organisation estimates that&nbsp;<a href="https://cdn.who.int/media/docs/default-source/essential-medicines/fair-price/chapter-medicines.pdf?sfvrsn=adcffc8f_4&amp;download=true" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">about 2 billion people</a>, especially those in lower and middle-income countries, lack access to quality and affordable essential medicines. This reality is even made worse by the proliferation of fake and killer counterfeit drugs&nbsp;that have been used to plug the gap. 
Essentially, Axmed is addressing medical supply chain fragmentation by building a marketplace that aims to link manufacturers with health institutions to fix the inefficiencies that lead to shortages, high costs and the proliferation of counterfeit drugs. 
The startup hopes to achieve this by aggregating demand, enabling buyers to source drugs directly from manufacturers at lower costs and moving away from traditional pharmaceutical supply chains that have multiple levels of dealers and distributors. To trade on the marketplace, both sellers and buyers would have to meet multiple regulatory and legal criteria. 
Axmed’s initial target markets include Nigeria, Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Rwanda. It is looking to penetrate these markets by employing faith-based institutions, non-governmental organizations, government-led care providers and procurement agencies. 
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Beyond strengthening the supply chain, the startup is also looking to aggregate orders enough to actually create an attractive market for manufacturers. Forbes noted that low- and middle-income countries account for more than 80 per cent of the world’s population and more than 90 per cent of its disease burden, yet global pharmaceutical companies earn just 6 per cent of their revenues from these countries. For various structural and commercial reasons, they do the vast majority of their business with developed economies. 
Axmed is thus, hoping to change this narrative by allowing governments and other organisations from developing countries to place orders for the medicines they need. All orders for each medicine are then aggregated into one large order that provides demand in the volumes that pharmaceutical companies are looking for. This enables manufacturers to supply the drugs at prices that the less wealthy countries can afford to pay. 
“The principle is that it shouldn’t matter whether you’re a small country or a large one – you should be paying the same price for essential medicines. We think our approach is a win-win outcome – it lowers the barriers to accessing costly medicines for patients and providers while enabling manufacturers to expand their footprint in underserved markets,” Akpakwu said. 
See also: <a href="https://technext24.com/2019/03/29/rxall-is-the-ambitious-nigerian-startup-using-blockchain-to-fight-fake-drugs/">RxAll is the Ambitious Nigerian Startup Using Blockchain to Fight Fake Drugs</a>

Nigerian-led Axmed raises $2m seed funding to boost medicine supply to low-income countries

Technext.ng

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