Launch Africa Ventures, a leading venture capital firm focused on Africa, has announced its investment in Meditect, a dynamic digital health startup that is revolutionizing healthcare access in sub-Saharan Africa.

Meditect utilizes a digital platform to connect pharmacies with reliable suppliers, ensuring essential medications are readily available at fair prices. This focus on accessibility aims to bridge the gap and promote healthcare equity for communities across 17 French-speaking countries in the region. Meditect is on a mission to transform healthcare access across sub-Saharan Africa by leveraging digital solutions. Its bold vision includes serving 10,000,000 patients a month by 2030, underlining its commitment to delivering quality care and medicines at affordable prices.

Key differentiators propelling Meditect

• Accessible and Affordable Medicines: Meditect’s platform fosters connections between pharmacies and trustworthy suppliers, guaranteeing the availability of essential drugs at fair prices. This approach directly addresses the challenge of affordability and accessibility to quality healthcare.
• Optimized Pharmacy Management: Meditect offers a state-of-the-art software solution that streamlines pharmacy operations, saving resources and time while enhancing service quality for both patients and healthcare providers.
• Data Market Leadership: As Meditect expands its footprint, it gathers valuable insights into the pharmaceutical landscape in Africa. This data leadership has the potential to drive informed decision-making within the healthcare sector.

Founded in 2018, Meditect tackles a critical issue

Led by Arnaud Pourredon (CEO), Romain Renard (CFO), and Sasha Servan-Schreiber, Meditect offers a solution that combats the critical issue of counterfeit medications in developing countries. Their approach leverages blockchain technology to ensure the authenticity and traceability of medicines, while strengthening and securing their legal distribution.

The Meditect ecosystem comprises:

• Pharmaceutical company dashboard: Provides insights into medicine traceability and distribution.
• Free pharmacist and patient applications (mobile app & webapp):
• Pharmacists can authenticate and verify medicine inventory.
• Patients can verify medicine authenticity in under 10 seconds and access valuable information about the medication, including personalized treatment advice.

According to the World Health Organization, counterfeit medicines claim one million lives annually, with the global pharmaceutical industry incurring financial losses of approximately $200 billion due to counterfeiting. This issue is particularly severe in developing countries, where most medicines are imported and a significant portion (up to two-thirds) are purchased on the streets. Meditect’s blockchain-powered solution directly addresses this global public health concern.

Following an initial funding round secured through Business Angels, BPI New-Aquitaine, and the New-Aquitaine Region in 2019, Meditect completed its first institutional fundraising in May 2020, raising €1.5 million from LBO France’s Digital Health 2 fund. Meditect has employees working in both France (Bordeaux and Paris) and Côte d’Ivoire (Abidjan).

LAV’s decision to invest in Meditect reflects the company’s potential to create a significant positive impact in sub-Saharan Africa. Meditect’s commitment to providing affordable and accessible healthcare solutions aligns with LAV’s focus on fostering innovation that addresses critical challenges faced by the African continent.