CEO Gregory Rockson told the media, “We saw this as an opportunity to leverage our pharmacies as virtual doctor offices so that patients could get examined remotely during a virtual consultation. This is what makes mPharma’s telemedicine unique.”

He also mentioned that mPharma already provides about 10,000 physician consultations to patients at the startup’s network of pharmacies. The virtual centres will enable them to do it electronically and expand their reach.

Earlier this year, mPharma, which already operates in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda and Zambia, announced their expansion in Ethiopia. The healthtech startup signed a franchise agreement with Belayab Pharmaceuticals through its subsidiary, Haltons Limited.

In this regard, Rockson said, “Ethiopia is one of the most closed economies on the continent. This has made it a bit hard for other startups to launch there just because the government rarely allows foreign investments in the retail sector.”

mPharma was founded in 2013 by Rockson, Daniel Shoukimas and James Finucane. So far, the startup has raised over $50 million in separate funding rounds. Last year, it raised around $17 million in its Series C funding round.

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According to Chefaa, it will use the funding to grow its operations team and launch its B2B service to serve small and medium-sized enterprises (SME).

Chefaa is on an on-demand medical delivery platform that its customers with their local pharmacies, enabling chronic patients in Egypt to schedule, order, and refill their recurring prescriptions as well as other non-pharmaceutical products through its web or mobile application.

Dr. Rasha Rady, the co-founder, and COO of the startup told the media, ”We take pride in serving our growing base of users as well as managing their pharmacy needs. We have built our customer care center to ensure that user experience is being managed professionally. We also understand the impact of chronic illness as well as chronic patients’ needs and we intend to launch new services all designed around making their lives easier.”

Established in 2017 by Doaa Aref and Dr. Rasha Rady, Chefaa claims it is helping tens of thousands of chronic patients across Egypt to properly manage their treatment by enabling them to easily order their medicines online.

Last year, the startup announced that it has raised seed funding in a round led by 500 Startups with the participation of Flat6Labs and a group of undisclosed angel investors.

Chefaa, which is based in Cairo, operates in nine Egyptian cities and has generated sales of over $1 million as of 2019, completing more than 100,000 orders through its network of 800+ pharmacies.

The post Egyptian healthtech Chefaa secures pre-Series A funding appeared first on International Finance.

In order to launch the mobile testing labs, 54gene has entered into partnerships with First City Monument Bank and the Ogun State government.

In a statement, the company said, “In carrying out a situational analysis, it became clear that there was a need for infrastructure to support an increase in testing capacity in Nigeria. However, setting up a permanent structure requires significant cost, manpower, and an extensive period of construction time. Speed was of the essence, as we saw the need to increase nationwide testing capabilities, isolate positive cases, and thus help flatten the curve by breaking the chain of transmission.”

“Our mobile lab removes the restriction imposed by permanent buildings and allows us to quickly offer our services to multiple states due to the ease of transport and the mobile capability it provides. This reduces turnaround times for test results and allows clinicians to manage and treat patients accurately, sooner rather than later. The environmentally-friendly cargotecture solution can also be reused to serve other functions for urban spaces,”

Recently, 54gene has raised around $15 million in its Series A funding round. The startup has also launched a fund of its own to raise money to help Nigeria deal with the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

Established in 2018, 54gene is a research company that utilises human genetic data from diverse African populations and works toward the development, availability, and efficacy of medical in the African continent.

So far, Nigeria has reported around 1700 positive cases of Covid-19 and around 50 deaths.

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