In about 2000, the lifespan in Kenya was about 46 years, and
that was largely because of the infectious diseases, HIV, TB, malaria and so forth.
Now that medicines are available the life expectancy has gone above 60.
My thinking about health is that it should be a right for everybody,
there should be some equity to it.
So that somebody who is living off in a far flung part
of Kenya can have almost the same healthcare that somebody
living in Nairobi, going to a top tiered hospital.
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My name is Dr. Albert Mburu, I'm from Kenya.
My company is called Generics Africa limited.
We provide medicines, which are high quality, most of them are generics.
Some of them are brands, and we try to make them accessible to the clinics,
hospitals and pharmacies throughout East Africa.
>> My mum was a nurse, my dad was a banker somewhere along the way I ended up in
medicine because I was very good in sciences.
But I also loved the fact that you provided an actual fulfillment
once you treated people.
And you'd see the smiles once somebody got better but
along the way I also that just being a doctor.
You're treating one person, you don't have an impact on the larger society.
So I had a need to do Public health.
But I found that you still don't have the control
on the actual patient because you're working in so many layers of bureaucracy.
So I found the world of entrepreneurship, being rewarding and
also free, you're free to actually do some impact.
During my time, on vacation, I would sometimes come back to Kenya and
get to talk to other doctors and they will tell me of some of the issues they have.
And some of the issues about stockouts in medicine.
And for me, it was unbelievable because these are medicines.
For instance, if you're practicing in the US, you don't have a problem with them.
I mean, access is very easy to get those medicines.
So when I'm overseas I'll transfers for them,
but then over time, I found that the needs are getting more and more.
So you provide a few medicines and over time they'll ask for more and more.
The need for business arose from that.
We find that there is a need for certain medicines which are not available.
For instance for
children, but in America will be the EpiPen, which is basically a medicine used
to protect patients who have a high risk of getting an allergic reaction.
Which can be deadly, that medicine is not easily accessible in this country.
So we are able to source that and provide to the children's hospitals and
make sure that they get it at a good price.
One thing we found is that sometimes you could find that the original medicine
could be 10 times more expensive than the generics.
So that's where we try to make sure that if we can get a generic equivalent,
we make that accessible to this market.
>> It is important to have affordable medicine so
as to improve accessibility to the public.
And when patients have access to affordable generics,
then their health outcomes are way better than if they didn't have that option.
>> In this market, one of the challenges which we had was the fact that there were
a lot of under the radar, illegal unlicensed distributors.
>> A counterfeit is a fake or an imitation of the original product
which tries to deceive the market that is equivalent to the original product.
Of course, it has not been tested and
when that patient takes it, of course they get worse.
But now with the good distribution networks created by good companies like
Genetics Africa, then we are able to overcome this challenge of counterfeits.
>> I knew about Stanford, having also lived in the US for a bit of time.
I'd also wanted to do an executive MBA, but I didn't have the time.
So I found that Seed was synergistic to my wanting to continuously learn,
and also the fact that we're locally available.
I didn't have to think about leaving my business completely and
going off to a different part of the world.
Over the last two years, we've doubled the revenues we are over $10 million.
We've also managed to have 75 direct staff, and 20 indirect.
In terms of the benefits to the employees,
we've managed to make sure all of them get health insurance,
we give them pensions, we give them bonuses, we give them overtime.
We have a passion for children.
So, we've worked with some of the hospitals to take care of the children in
the slums who will get free health camps.
We hope that in future we can even broaden those things to the bigger society.
Can we do scholarship schemes?
Can we employ more people?
Because in Kenya when you hire one person,
they have maybe about seven indirect dependents to them.
In the future, we want to see ourselves as both a major distributor and manufacturer.
Both within and distribute within Eastern Central Africa, which is a larger market.
One of the best things about my job it gives me
a lot of satisfaction to see that we are able to impact on other people's lives.
We see ourselves as part of the solution
to the ills in the community.
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