Malaria has killed many in Africa and in other parts of the world. There have been various methods to curb or treat the disease from mosquito nets, to insecticides and artemisinin combination therapy. Regardless, there is really no innovation that will quickly, affordably and effortlessly run malaria test giving accurate results. This is about to change as there is now an African solution to tackling this problem. Matibabu is the solution! It is therefore unsurprising that Matibabu was named as the winner of the African Prize for Engineering Innovation. Techawk had an exclusive interview with Moris Atwine who is part of the Matibabu team. Atwine spoke about Matibabu, how the product will tackle the malaria problem and the challenges they have encountered so far. Excerpts
Matibabu-What is it all about? Why did you name your solution Matibabu? What is the meaning?
Matibabu is a Swahili word that means treatment. It’s a portable parasite-based hardware device that uses the principles of light scattering and magnetism to detect malaria.
What was the motivation for inventing Matibabu?
We all had cases of malaria during our time at University, further missing most of our lectures which eventually became a determination to turn that statistic into a solution.
Your solution was recently named the overall winner of the Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation. What is your reaction to this? What do you think this win will do to your startup?
We are incredibly honoured to win the Africa Prize. It’s such a big achievement for us because it means that we can better manage production in order to scale clinical trials and prove ourselves to regulators. The recognition will help us open up partnership opportunities which is what we need most at the moment.
How will you describe the reception of Matibabu so far?
It has been exciting, while we’re creating this for the people, it’s not easy to have it on the market and more so by end users. However, we are figuring out the best way to have it on the market as soon as possible.
Generally, it has been a learning experience for the team. Realistically, the team has had enough insights into innovation and collaboration for early stage medical device development for-example the medical translational research of how to move from the biomaterials laboratory to the preclinical facilities kind of setting. This highly involves accreditation of R&D processes and facilities which is important with certifications such as ISO (International Standards) for a preclinical side.
Looking at the malaria statistics in Africa, it is very dire. Do you think your solution is viable enough to tackle this problem?
In general, the lack of low cost diagnostics for malaria results in late diagnosis of the disease in many low income communities (contributing to high morbidity and mortality from severe forms of malaria), and over-treatment of malaria where syndromic management is used due to lack of point-of-care diagnostics (contributing to wastage of money on treatment of non malarial illness especially since the new recommended Artemisinin-based therapies are expensive). Matibabu addresses malaria disease management by offering a cost-effective rapid early diagnosis of malaria which reduces the amount of medication, duration of treatment and number of people suffering severe effects of malaria infection. Matibabu also offers prompt, accurate diagnosis reducing power challenges, the need for trained personnel, and shortened diagnosis time. It also offers a data collection model that logs the location and results of the diagnosis that helps in making an informed decision about malaria at a given location. Witthe h potential value of reduced socio-economic costs of the disease for 300-500 million people.
What are your plans for expansion and where do you see your startup in the next 5 years?
We have an estimated market size of 868 registered health facilities in Uganda. Globally, around 3.2 billion populace still remains at the increased risk of getting the disease. As per the WHO estimates in the year 2016, 212 million malaria cases were detected, and the number of fatalities was estimated to be 429,000 during the same period. With an estimated registered 868 health facilities in Uganda with each facility requiring a minimum of 4 devices to handle the daily inpatient visits for malaria diagnosis and an assumed unit price of 100USD this device could represent a 347,200USD market opportunity in Uganda which is scalable according to the number of health facilities present in Sub Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia and some parts of South America. Matibabu’s revenue model is built around hardware sales and data. We anticipate to initially sell the hardware to health facilities at USD 100. As Matibabu also carries out a diagnosis, the devices collect data on the location and the malaria results. This information can be sold to the government and organizations responsible for fighting malaria in order to make informed decisions. Market and distribution of the Matibabu beyond our native country would be through partnerships with big health institution and medical device distributors such as the World Health Organization and Lancet Medical Distributors. Since these bodies have an already developed pipeline for distribution, plugging into their existing infrastructure would be ideal and more efficient for Matibabu. The biggest challenge during the scaling of Matibabu will be obtaining approval for the device to be used in the respective countries. This process is time-consuming and tedious since each country possesses its own requirements. The team at Matibabu hopes to address this by investing in the early obtaining of global approval for the device through the EU marking and FDA approval as a medical diagnostic.
You must have faced some challenges when developing this laudable solution. Can you share some of these challenges? Was there a point in time you felt like giving up?
We have never felt like giving up but the times haven’t been easy. First of all, we all come from economies where funding is low and have to apply to international competitions to acquire some funding. Additionally, there’s no defined framework for medical technologies which has been a challenge to get approved.
Did you get any support from the government? Have international bodies like the World Health Organisation reached out to you?
We haven’t really gotten any support from the government, and yes the World Health Organisation recently reached out and we are yet to understand how best to work together.
What advice do you have for budding entrepreneurs?
Do what you love. I always felt that there’s nothing quite like the satisfaction that comes from solving a challenge that most Africans are facing.
