HID/QST Seminars

 
Africa Biosystems Limited hosts seminars for HID / QST in Nairobi, Kenya.  Christa Swanepoel and Sonja Strumpher from Applied Biosystems (Part of Life Technologies) led discussions on both specialized topics. The meeting was well attended by crossection of people working on human identification from Kenya & Uganda.  The QST seminar was attended by individuals from the export matrket and food industries.

SPEECH BY IRFAN VERJEE, DIRECTOR OF STRATEGY, AFRICA BIOSYSTEMS LIMITED, AT THE 5TH TEPHINET AND 3RD AFENET REGIONAL SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCE
MOMBASA, KENYA 30TH AUGUST - 4 SEPTEMBER 2009 
 
Ladies and Gentleman -- Thank you for giving me the opportunity to address you on behalf of Africa Biosystems Limited and Applied Biosystems – now a part of Life Technologies.

The past three days of the conference have exposed many of the challenges we face as a continent and more importantly, highlighted the dedication, passion and commitment that our scientists have in understanding and solving these problems.

Today, sub-Saharan Africa has about 11 percent of the world’s people, but it carries 24 percent of the global disease burden in human and financial costs. From a global perspective, Africa accounts for less that 1% of the pharmaceutical drug market.

In a region where public resources are limited, talent is scarce and technology seems inaccessible – It is not the time to pessimistic – now is the time for solutions and innovation.  Africa Biosystems believes that the life sciences industry in Africa today is what the cell-phone industry was to Africa 10 years ago. The work we do as scientific community will be the driving force behind building a healthy, productive and self-sufficient continent.

Looking forward into the next few years our needs as a continent will grow: we will need over 600,000 additional hospital beds, 90,000 physicians, 500,000 nurses, and 300,000 community health workers. By 2016, the African healthcare market is projected to double, demanding an additional $25-$30 billion in new investments over the next 7 years.  The IFC, the Gates Foundation and its partners have already committed over $1 billion of investment and advisory support services over the next five years.

 As epidemiologists, you combine knowledge, technology and local understanding to develop solutions to African healthcare problems. I would like to highlight three keys areas of the healthcare agenda.

One: Diagnostic testing of zoonotic diseases such as influenza, swine flu, avian flu and cholera
Two: Vaccine development for malaria, TB and HIV
Three: Counterfeit drugs

Counterfeit malaria drugs are of particular concern because of the scale and severity of the disease — it kills more than 2,000 children a day in Africa alone — and these fake or substandard malaria drugs are aggravating the growing problem of drug resistance.

At Africa Biosystems, we supply state of the art life sciences technology to Eastern African markets – this includes suppliers such Applied Biosystems, Dionex and UVItec products.

The World Health Organization together with the CDC have developed standardized procedures based on  Applied Biosystems Taqman real time PCR 7500 technology to diagnose influenza, cholera and avian flu. The systems can test a high volume of samples with low cost per test and very high accuracy. In fact, of the 19 CDC sponsored labs in sub-Saharan Africa, 15 of them use the Applied Biosystems 7500 real time PCR.

Furthermore, Applied Biosystems’ sequencing technologies—such as the 3500 and the new Solid 3 system combined with the thermocycler and real time-PCR are critical industry standard tools for vaccine development and disease management of malaria, HIV and TB.

We are about to release products from a new suppler to Africa, Dionex, a world leader in Ion Chromatography. This is a powerful technique used to determine drinking water quality and environmental contaminants in wastewater.

In combination, Applied Biosystems’ Mass spectrometers and Dionex’s High Performance Liquid Chromatography equipment have an important use in weeding out counterfeit drugs and conducting Quality Control testing. The Mass Spectrometer systems are able to analyze the ingredients of a pill or capsule to identify chemicals by measuring molecular weights. Recently, they were used to test whether mosquito nets have actually been treated with insecticide.

For our scientific community, Africa Biosystems provides customers three basic services.

First, we assist in selecting the most appropriate equipment based on customer needs and ensure prompt delivery. We also provide intensive training locally and internationally on specialized equipment before delivery.

Second, through our service arm, Helix Biotech, our certified field service engineers ensure speedy installation and local, on-site support and training such that our customers are operating their equipment to its full potential. This is a critical value added service needed for such machines in Africa.

Third, our international network of application specialists are always available to assist our customers in putting together experiments and collecting the relevant data for research, development and commercial needs across a host of application, including vaccine development, food security, forensics and many more.

Africa Biosystems is committed to building the research and development capability in region through educational seminars, on-site sales meetings and applications support. It is our vision and pride to provide the engines of healthcare transformation and partner with scientists, international development institutions (like the CDC) and local ministries of Health to find innovative solutions to Africa’s healthcare challenges.

On behalf of Africa Biosystems and Applied Biosystems we welcome you to tonight’s conference dinner.