• What we do
  • The People
  • About Us
  • Why Innovation Africa
  • Contact Us
Innovation AfricaCreating the Future Today
  • Feature Articles
  • Innovation
  • Agriculture
  • ICT
  • Technology
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Health
  • Store
  • Contact Us
Menu
  • Feature Articles
  • Innovation
  • Agriculture
  • ICT
  • Technology
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Health
  • Store
  • Contact Us
  • From the ‘Last Mile’ to the ‘Last Centimeter’

    January 3, 2012 Editor 0

    From the 'Last Mile' to the 'Last Centimeter'

    Authored by: Martin Herrndorf

     

    Calls for pharmaceutical companies to make their pills and powders available to the poor at low prices are abundant. But that’s often when the challenges begin – and the solutions, something examined in a soon-to-be-launched Endeva report.

    The challenge: The last mile!

    Once again, the main challenge can be found in the “last mile” and, even, in the last centimetres:

    How do pharmaceuticals reach remote rural areas? And once they do, where are they stored? Where are they cooled, when perishable?

    Who controls fraudsters, producing copy-cats of well-known medical products, many of them without effect or even harmful?

    And finally, on the last centimetres: Who persuades clients that the medicine will actually work? And who controls “compliance” of patients, taking their medicine regularly at the prescribed intervals, and till the end of the treatment period (sometimes well beyond the last symptoms?)

    And, who’s going to pay for that? Even if pharmaceuticals are publicly funded, as is the case with Tubercolusis treatment in India, the distribution remains a logistical, technical and organisational challenge.

    The solution(s)

    There are too many solutions for a single blog-post. Successful programmes, like Operation Asha, combine a series of elements in its “recipe” for successfully distributing pharmaceutical elements:

    • Technology, like fingerprint readers and netbooks, to identify patients (it works like a charm, your author has tried it);
    • Incentives, like a bonus for ASHA district staff for zero-defaults among their patients;
    • Camouflage, such as hiding treatment centres in “normal” stores to avoid stigmatisation of patients.

    While Asha is certainly impressive, it is not a universal blueprint. But it contains a lot of inspiring small examples on how the big questions above could be tackled.

    Which to pick?

    If the bits and pieces for solving the “last mile and centimetre” challenge are out there, the task for practitioners is understanding them and finding the right combination that works in their specific context.

    One aid in this task can be the upcoming “Bringing Medicines to  Low-income Markets” publication. Almost one year after their report on Energize the BoP-Report, Berlin-based consultancy endeva has taken a look at a hundred business models for delivering pharamaceuticals, and summed up approaches that have worked in the convenient “A4s” – Awareness, Availability, Affordability, Acceptance; plus a additional A for Actors. The report has a wealth of information, which it provides in a digestible 72 pages. Probably, the accompanying case study vignettes are most useful for practitioners.

    As with energy, they’ve packed up the findings in a report, will run a small workshop on Jan. 23, 2012 for practitioners interested in working on their business models, and have a bigger launch event in Berlin on the same day.

    As some findings are relevant beyond the medical field, for BoP in general – for example the question on how to to persuade sceptical customers or fight piracy – the report makes a good read even if you’re not a health sector expert.

    Disclaimer: I am sometimes working for endeva, being one of their expert associates.

    Go to Source

    Related Posts

    • Africa gets ‘holistic’ drug discovery centreAfrica gets ‘holistic’ drug discovery centre
    • South Africa: Govt to Establish Institute for Regulatory ScienceSouth Africa: Govt to Establish Institute for Regulatory Science
    • Calling all mobile industry entrepreneursCalling all mobile industry entrepreneurs
    • The Five Characteristics of Successful Innovators
    • Free trials and payment plans: Innovative ways to market clean energy products in rural Uganda
    • Run strikingly fast parallel file searches in Go with sync.ErrGroupRun strikingly fast parallel file searches in Go with sync.ErrGroup
    Sovrn
    Share

    Categories: Next Billion

    Tags: pharmaceutical

    Design for Social Innovation loves Africa Information Technology’s Dangerous Trend in Africa

    Leave a Reply Cancel reply

    You must be logged in to post a comment.

Subscribe to our stories


 

Recent Posts

  • Entrepreneurial Alertness, Innovation Modes, And Business Models in Small- And Medium-Sized Enterprises December 30, 2021
  • The Strategic Role of Design in Driving Digital Innovation June 10, 2021
  • Correction to: Hybrid mosquitoes? Evidence from rural Tanzania on how local communities conceptualize and respond to modified mosquitoes as a tool for malaria control June 10, 2021
  • BRIEF FOCUS: Optimal spacing for groundnuts in smallholder farming systems June 9, 2021
  • COVID-19 pandemic: impacts on the achievements of Sustainable Development Goals in Africa June 9, 2021

Categories

Archives

Popular Post-All time

  • A review on biomass-based... 1k views
  • Can blockchain disrupt ge... 764 views
  • Apply Now: $500,000 for Y... 760 views
  • Prize-winning projects pr... 717 views
  • Test Your Value Propositi... 707 views

Recent Posts

  • Entrepreneurial Alertness, Innovation Modes, And Business Models in Small- And Medium-Sized Enterprises
  • The Strategic Role of Design in Driving Digital Innovation
  • Correction to: Hybrid mosquitoes? Evidence from rural Tanzania on how local communities conceptualize and respond to modified mosquitoes as a tool for malaria control
  • BRIEF FOCUS: Optimal spacing for groundnuts in smallholder farming systems
  • COVID-19 pandemic: impacts on the achievements of Sustainable Development Goals in Africa
  • Explicit knowledge networks and their relationship with productivity in SMEs
  • Intellectual property issues in artificial intelligence: specific reference to the service sector
  • Africa RISING publishes a livestock feed and forage production manual for Ethiopia
  • Transforming crop residues into a precious feed resource for small ruminants in northern Ghana
  • Photo report: West Africa project partners cap off 2020 with farmers field day events in Northern Ghana and Southern Mali

Tag Cloud

    africa African Agriculture Business Business model Business_Finance Company Crowdsourcing data Development East Africa economics Education Entrepreneur entrepreneurs Entrepreneurship ethiopia ghana Health_Medical_Pharma ict Information technology Innovation kenya knowledge Knowledge Management Leadership marketing mobile Mobile phone nigeria Open innovation Organization Research rwanda science Science and technology studies social enterprise social entrepreneurship south africa Strategic management strategy tanzania Technology Technology_Internet uganda

Categories

Archives

  • A review on biomass-based hydrogen production for renewable energy supply 1k views
  • Can blockchain disrupt gender inequality? 764 views
  • Apply Now: $500,000 for Your Big Data Innovations in Agriculture 760 views
  • Prize-winning projects promote healthier eating, smarter crop investments 717 views
  • Test Your Value Proposition: Supercharge Lean Startup and CustDev Principles 707 views

Copyright © 2005-2020 Innovation Africa Theme created by PWT. Powered by WordPress.org