For your audacity, I commend you

At 22 years, Towett Ngetich has accomplished perhaps what several top personalities in the world yearn for: meeting the Queen.

In June this year, Towett and a group of other young achievers from Kenya had the privilege of being hosted by Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace during their two-week stay in the UK.

Towett was honoured by the Queen’s Young Leaders, (a programme that discovers, celebrates and supports exceptional young people from Commonwealth countries) for his efforts to put a stop to the sale of counterfeit medicines, through his organisation, Uthabiti, which he founded in 2015 with  university friends.

 “The queen was surprised to hear what I do. She said, ‘that must be very difficult?’ It was the most breath-taking moment of my life,” Towett says.

He adds,

“Uthabiti is drawn from the Swahili word, ‘thabiti’, which means legitimate, reliable or genuine, in English. We are a start-up that aims to ensure that there are genuine healthcare products for Kenyan consumers.”

But why would he launch a campaign that exposes him to the vicious cartels that run the underworld of fake drugs in Kenya?

“I was surprised by the number of schoolmates that got pregnant, forcing them to suspend their studies to give birth and look after their children - I wondered why they did not use contraceptives, since it was clear that the pregnancies were unplanned – I spoke to some, who disclosed that they had indeed used contraceptives, but they had failed.”

The probability, Towett concluded, was that they had used counterfeit contraceptives.

A 2010 World Health Organisation report showed that 10 per cent of all drugs in circulation in Kenya were fake. Another report by the Pharmacy and Poisons Board showed an increase of counterfeit postinor-2 drugs in circulation between 2010 and 2013.

During a regional meeting on combating pharmaceutical counterfeits and piracy, organised by the Kenya Revenue Authority in September 2016, Wilfred Roge, the director of studies at the Institute of Research Against Counterfeit Medicines, noted that an investment in counterfeit drugs generates 10 times more profit than an equal investment in cocaine, making the trade more attractive.

“We realised that fake medicines was a major issue on the continent, with pharmaceutical companies in West Africa grappling with a similar problem. I got curious and began to study how the counterfeit world operates,” says Towett.

Drawing from incidences involving his friends, Towett concluded that certified chemists and health centres were being targeted by middlemen for the sale of inauthentic drugs.

“Logically, it is improbable that consumers will buy medicine on the streets, we therefore decided to target chemists and pharmacies in our campaign,” explains Towett.

He started by developing a batch number scanner that pharmacy owners could use to verify the authenticity of the medicine they received from pharmaceutical companies.

 “For our idea to work, we had to liaise with pharmaceutical companies; we hoped they would share important information about their drugs, but they were hesitant to trust us with their data, fearing that we might be working for rival drug companies.”

He adds,

 “I was asked to establish a network of pharmacies first, before major drug companies could consider my concept. I went back to the drawing board to repackage my idea.”  

Months went by, and in 2016, the Pharmacy and Poisons Board published a report listing firms that were authorised to deal with pharmaceutical products in Kenya. To Towett and his partners, Natalie Sang, who is trained in pharmacy, and Daniel Seroney, an engineer, this was the moment they had been waiting for. 

“We decided to approach and create a network of the registered firms that had been approved to supply drugs. We decided to start with chemists and pharmacies in Uasin Gishu County, where the response has been encouraging so far. We intend to open an office in Nairobi before establishing a national presence,” he says.

Towett has since developed another app which contains modules that connect consumers to pharmacies, approved deliverers and, most recent, doctors.

“Our consumers are able to consult doctors and get professional advice regarding their ailments, instead of having to search online for such information. They can also see which pharmacies within a given locale sell what medicine, as well as their prices. They then order for them after which a rider picks the parcel from the shop and delivers it to them. The app uses the same concept as Uber,” explains Towett.

ELIMINATION OF MIDDLEMEN

This elimination of middlemen seals all loopholes that dealers in imitation drugs might exploit.

“If a parcel arrives to its destination with even slight damage, you have the right to reject it and ship it back to the sender,” says Towett, who learnt about the world of logistics while working at the global forwarding firm, DHL.

Towett argues that treating the sale of medicine like other ordinary products is where Kenya is losing in its battle against counterfeit drugs, a situation he attributes to negligence and greed.

“It is sad that someone wakes up one day and decides to open a drugs store without following proper approval procedures, even sadder, most Kenyans buy medicine from such outlets without interrogating their credibility,” he argues.

Towett is optimistic that reaching out to many genuine pharmaceuticals dealers will reduce the supply of fake drugs by about 33 per cent in less than a year.

“The ultimate objective of Uthabiti is to fight counterfeits by linking consumers to pharmaceutical manufacturers, in a campaign where Uthabiti becomes a brand of legitimacy in the circulation of medicine.”

The fourth year Communication and PR student at Moi University hopes that his campaign will also help to increase access of healthcare products in areas that are lowly supplied due to logistical challenges, and create a network of well-informed consumers.

“The world is moving towards an era of full interconnectivity of entities offering various products and services, which is what we are positioning ourselves for.”