Abuja, Nigeria

The COVID-19 global pandemic continues to affect supply chains worldwide, but with even more devastating impact on low- and middle-income countries where access to essential medicines remains a challenge, resulting in millions of people missing out on quality healthcare.    With a shared vision for improving equitable access to life-saving health products, VIA Global Health and Connect the Dots Initiative (CDI) are forging a partnership with their respective platforms and services to close the access gap in Africa, and connect African pharmaceutical manufacturers with buyers within and outside the continent. 

VIA Global Health, an online procurement platform with an engaged sales team, focuses on equitable distribution of life-saving health products by serving buyers in low- and middle-income countries. Having sold products into 74 countries and positively impacting the lives of over 2 million people, VIA sees this partnership as an opportunity to further its mission and expand its product offering, with CDI as a partner to source local and regional pharmaceutical manufacturers.    

“The COVID-19 pandemic has taught us a number of lessons,” says VIA CEO Noah Perin, “one of the most important of those is the need to work through partnerships to develop a more resilient supply chains and sustainable distribution channels.  The partnership with CDI allows us to do that, while also supporting economic development.”  

The Connecting the Dots Initiative (CDI) is an initiative launched by the Africa Pharma Platform (APP) as an immediate response to the Covid-19 pandemic to aggregates the demand and supply of the much-needed products required to address COVID-19 needs and other essential health services.  CDI emerged from DFS Africa as a response to COVID-19, designed specifically to connect African manufacturers of essential health products to institutions and organizations that most need them.  Even before the pandemic, smaller manufacturers of health care products have exceptional challenges competing for customers and against foreign suppliers.   “To strengthen a channel that connects buyers and sellers in their own markets has been the priority for CDI, working with VIA will allow us to raise visibility, access, and improve efficiency,” says Olukayode Afolabi, Chief Operating Officer for CDI and Executive Director of DFS Africa.  

Bringing CDI’s supplier network together with VIA’s buyer network, is expected to amplify the impact of both platforms, passing on the benefits of working with both companies through lower product costs and greater efficiency, and elevating the role of African manufacturers in pandemic response and progress toward stronger health systems.  

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VIA Global Health is reinventing the global healthcare supply chain with a vision to scale health innovation to the 6 billion people living in emerging economies. Leveraging our e-commerce and logistics platform, VIA connects global healthcare equipment suppliers to a network of verified local distributors – with a mission to create universal access to the tools that enable quality healthcare. For media inquiries please email [email protected]