South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Wednesday launched the FuturePHARMA facility in Tshwane to strengthen the country’s pharmaceutical capabilities and health security.
Based at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) campus in Waterkloof, the open-access facility will provide researchers, innovators and industry partners with specialised infrastructure and expertise to develop pharmaceutical technologies, including active pharmaceutical ingredients.
Ramaphosa said FuturePHARMA would help promising innovations progress from laboratory research towards clinical development, regulatory approval and commercial production. “This is truly a milestone in South Africa’s journey towards health sovereignty,” he said.
Reflecting on COVID-19, the President said the pandemic exposed the risks of relying on global supply chains for essential health products and demonstrated the need to strengthen local scientific and manufacturing capabilities.
FuturePHARMA will support pharmaceutical process development, scale-up, technology transfer and skills training. It will provide shared capabilities that individual researchers, universities and emerging companies may find too costly to establish independently.
Ramaphosa said its success would depend on collaboration among government, universities, industry, regulators and investors, with coordinated investment across the pharmaceutical value chain.
He added that the facility would support broader African health security by creating opportunities for collaboration with researchers, institutions and companies across the continent.
“Through FuturePHARMA, South Africa is investing not only in infrastructure but in knowledge, innovation and industrial capability,” he said.