Atunse Healthcare Launches In Lagos To Manufacture Advanced Biologics In Nigeria

Atunse Healthcare Ltd. was launched in Lagos today with a commitment to manufacture and distribute advanced regenerative biologics in Nigeria, and to train the Nigerian scientists and clinicians required to sustain the industry.

 

For decades, access to the most advanced medicine has meant traveling abroad for many Nigerians — if they could afford it. Atunse says that must change.

“For a generation, the most advanced medicine of our age has been something Africans travel for. Atunse exists to change the direction of that journey. We begin in Lagos, but what we are building is not for Lagos alone,” said Prof. Kamar T. Adeleke, President and Chairman of Atunse Healthcare Ltd.

The company is already providing care across six areas: aesthetic medicine, longevity and vitality, men’s wellness, women’s wellness, musculoskeletal support, and neurological care.

The launch comes amid stark health data for the continent. Africa imports approximately 99% of vaccines and more than 95% of the medicines it uses, and produces less than 1% of its own vaccine supply.

In Nigeria, the cost is direct. An estimated US$2.39 billion left the country in 2024 as citizens sought medical care abroad. The greater cost, Atunse noted, is borne by those who cannot travel and for whom advanced treatment has not been an option.

“What Nigeria loses is not only money. It is the demand, the capital and the clinical talent that need never have left. That is not a shortage of resources — it is an absence of capability. We intend to build it here: the treatment, the manufacturing, the distribution, and the people who will run all three,” said Dr. Sola Oluwole, Chief Executive Officer of Atunse Healthcare Ltd.

Atunse Healthcare Ltd. is Nigerian-domiciled and Nigerian-based. It is a partnership between KweHealth, LLC of the United States, which brings an established scientific and manufacturing platform, and Tri-State Healthcare System of Nigeria, which brings clinical delivery and institutional depth.

Rather than building capabilities in sequence, the company is pursuing four pillars simultaneously:

1. Clinical delivery through a treatment centre in Nigeria
2. Advanced biomanufacturing, working toward cGMP-grade production of advanced biologics in Nigeria, with a roadmap to vaccines and, in time, cell and gene therapies
3. Research and clinical translation, so that discovery and evidence generation take place in Africa and African patients are participants in the science, not only recipients
4. Regulatory capability, developed in active alignment with NAFDAC on the pathway for advanced biologic products

Atunse says local manufacturing must come with local expertise. Biomanufacturing, quality assurance, regulatory science and clinical research are high-skill, durable roles that Nigeria has had few opportunities to develop.

“A country which manufactures without training its own scientists, and without governing its own standards, has substituted one dependency for another,” the company stated.

The vision aligns with the African Union’s goal for the continent to produce 60% of its own health products locally by 2040.

“Africa is not asking to be admitted to this field. It is joining it — as a manufacturer and as a clinical partner, working on the health problems this continent actually has. The science does not become African by being applied here. It becomes African when it is made here, studied here, and taught here,” said Dr. Frederick A. Kweh, Chief Science and Technology Officer of Atunse Healthcare Ltd.

Atunse is working with four investigational platforms developed and manufactured by KweHealth — AVEXO™, KH-1814™, AIOVA™ and NKIRA™. The company stated these are used only within approved regulatory and ethical frameworks and with informed consent. They are not approved for any indication, and the company makes no claim of safety or efficacy.

The summit was addressed by Alhaji Aliko Dangote, GCON, Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Dangote Group, represented by Halima Aliko Dangote, who delivered the keynote address.

Mr. Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu, Governor of Lagos State, attended as Special Guest of Honour and was represented by Prof. Akin Abayomi, the Honourable Commissioner for Health.

With its Lagos launch, Atunse Healthcare says it is laying the foundation for a future where advanced medicine is not only imported into Africa, but invented, manufactured, and governed on the continent.