Nigerian health care to get a boost through W. P. Carey partnership

W. P. Carey faculty and the African Resource Center for Excellence in Supply Chain Management explore pooled procurement to improve access to affordable medicine.

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that half of the 1.2 billion people in Africa cannot access essential medicines due to poor infrastructure and affordability, which negatively impacts the continent’s health care supply chain. The Africa Resource Center for Excellence in Supply Chain Management (ARC_ESM), based in Nigeria, has partnered with the W. P. Carey School of Business to address these challenges.

ARC_ESM has been a partner of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation since 2021 and provides supply chain expertise and resources to improve public health in Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, by connecting governments within 11 of the country's states with solution providers. One such solution is the partnership brokered by ARC_ESM between the states and local manufacturers and distributors of pharmaceuticals.

"States felt they were not getting the best prices for medications. They suspect that by coming together to negotiate with manufacturers, they might get better prices and improve the drug delivery process," says Adegoke Oke, professor of supply chain management and department chair.

ARC_ESM partnered with a W. P. Carey supply chain faculty research team comprising of Oke, Associate Professor of Supply Chain Management and Co-Director of the Supply Chain Resilience Initiative Mikaella Polyviou, Motorola Professor of Supply Chain Management John Fowler, Professor of Supply Chain Management and Co-Director of the Supply Chain Resilience Initiative Gene Schneller, and Research Assistant Viraj Joshi in January to investigate the benefits of pharmaceutical pooled procurement, or combining resources across the states to purchase products collectively instead of independently. If the research determines that Nigerian state governments can lower drug prices through pooled procurement, ARC_ESM will present the findings to government officials.

"This research provides much-needed evidence to galvanize states to pool resources and work closely with pharmaceutical manufacturers," says Honorable Commissioner for Health and Human Services in the Ekiti State, Oyebanji Filani. "It could help us negotiate better with pharmaceutical companies, and the government could pass the cost savings on to the Nigerian people. These cost savings have real-life implications."

The first research phase, which focused on collective drug purchasing between four Nigerian states, determined the states would reap financial benefits from participating in pooled procurement.

"W. P. Carey is known to have some of the best supply chain education in the world," says ARC_ESM CEO Azuka Okeke, who visited the ASU Tempe campus in late September to discuss the project's first phase of research. "It's important for us to work with a university that understands what we want to achieve in Nigeria — we are very interested in the health of Nigerian people. We did not want this to be a transactional relationship, but a relationship based on the 'business is personal' motto."

Okeke visited ASU with Filani and several ARC_ESM leadership and government officials, including Muhammad Lawan Gana, Honorable Commissioner for Health and Human Services in Yobe State; Frank Muonemeh, executive secretary and CEO at Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Group of Manufacturers Association of Nigeria; Itunu Akinware, a physician and managing director at Medbury Medical Services; Maeve Magner, ARC_ESM advisor and delegate; Ebrahim Adamjee, physician and executive business director at Axmed Foundation; Charlie Li, lead strategist at the Axmed Foundation; and Henry Tochukwu Iloanugo, director of pharmacy at Field Intelligence.

"Navigating the interests of the various stakeholders — the buyers of pharmaceuticals (the States) and the pharmaceutical suppliers — and communicating the benefits of pooled procurement to both parties has been a great experience," says Polyviou, the W. P. Carey research team project manager. "It was wonderful working with the ARC_ESM team, especially CEO Okeke, and the Honorable Commissioners Filani and Gana. They are a forward-thinking and inspiring team working to improve Nigerians' access to affordable and good-quality medicines."

Polyviou will lead the project's second phase of research, beginning with helping Nigerian states identify the most appropriate pooled procurement structure based on the World Health Organization's four proposed models: informed buying, where buyers share price and supplier information but procure products independently; coordinated informed buying, where buyers coordinate to conduct supplier market research but procure products independently; group contracting, where buyers jointly prequalify and select suppliers, negotiate prices, and establish contracts but procure products independently; and central contracting and procurement, where buyers establish a central procurement entity responsible for procuring pharmaceuticals and distributing them to buyers. In addition to the existing data, by analyzing group purchasing organizations in the U.S., the ASU team will help the Nigerian states evaluate each pooled procurement structure. After a structure has been identified, ASU will assist with developing a national guideline for implementing pooled procurement in Nigeria.

As the second research phase begins, ARC_ESM will also partner with W. P. Carey Executive Education to design training for the leadership of the various state governments in Nigeria.

"Our job is to find the best resources all over the world to help the African nation," says Okeke. "Our partnership with ASU shows that we can collaborate across continents to do something beneficial at not just an individual level, but a national level."