President Paul Kagame, on November 8, joined Mia Amor Mottley, Prime Minister of Barbados, Ursula Gertrud von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, Werner Hoyer, President of the European Investment Bank Group, and Holm Keller-Chairman of the kENUP Foundation for the launch of ‘Pharmaceutical Equity for Global Public Health initiative’ at COP27 going on in Egypt.

The event was also attended virtually by President Ali of Guyana and Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus-Director-General of the World Health Organization.

The leaders launched a South-South cooperation initiative aimed at developing and manufacturing 60 per cent of all essential, contemporary pharmaceuticals within Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa by 2040.

kENUP Foundation is a non-profit public benefit foundation supporting research-based innovation in the wider health industries for societal benefit.

The foundation initiates and facilitates public and private investment into innovations with the potential to improve the livelihood of every citizen.

It supports the development of scientific innovations into sustainable business propositions and makes them financeable by public and private institutions, and civil society partners. Such financing is typically aimed at de-risking product development processes that otherwise cannot be pursued.

"The world has to be better prepared for future pandemics. So, I fully support the initiative for cooperation on pharmaceuticals. Our goal is that the majority of all pharmaceuticals needed locally are also manufactured locally,” stated Ursula Gertrud von der Leyen-the president of the European Commission.

Werner Hoyer, President of the European Investment Bank Group added:" Climate, nature, and health are investments that bring enormous social and economic returns worldwide. No one can succeed alone. We need to build on each other’s strengths. You can count on EIB to do its part.”

Last year, Rwanda announced a partnership with BioNTech, and the kENUP Foundation to explore establishing end-to-end manufacturing capability for mRNA vaccines.

In June this year, President Paul Kagame led the ceremony to break ground for the construction of the BioNTech vaccine manufacturing plant in Rwanda that will promote scalable mRNA vaccine production in Africa.

The manufacturing plant for mRNA-based vaccines is being built in the Kigali Special Economic Zone located at Masoro-Munini, Gasabo District, in a section earmarked for biopharma manufacturing.