A fortnight ago the National Drug Authority (NDA) gave the greenlight for Covidex to be distributed as a supporting treatment for Covid-19.
While the public had already caught on to the usefulness of the drug, Jena Herbals Ltd the producer of the drug, still had to cross some Ts and dot some Is with the NDA.
In a an interview aired last week, Dr Patrick Ogwang said he is confident of the drug’s efficacy – it worked for him and several other people he tried it on, and was working to scale up production from the current 30,000 20 ml bottles daily.
"Going by Ogwang’s expertise and experience it is safe to say the science is proven, the trick now is to scale up production to get the medicine into as many hands as possible, which is where business management comes in....
The first order of business is for Jena Herbals to lock down the intellectual property that surrounds the formula for Covidex.
Intellectual property is a real asset on a company’s books. Like any other property this can be sold, leased or mortgaged to generate income for the company. And like any other property needs to be protected from people who want to steal or abuse it.
"Given the real need around the pandemic – there are currently at least 12 million active cases worldwide, the covidex intellectual property needs to be secured internationally....
The enormity and cost of this task is such that the government needs to be involved, if only as a way for creating global market access for the drug.
Already President Yoweri Museveni has pledged that his government will help with funds for expansion.
The business acumen surrounding Jena Herbals will determine whether they can – as their founder wishes, provide this good to the widest public.
It is safe to say that Jena Herbals was unknown to most people until now. The challenge of scaling up production to even a million doses a day will invariably require more resources – financial, human resource and even land and a dramatic improvement in management. It is one thing to run a 30,000 bottle a day production line and quite another to run multiple production lines in multiple locations around the world.
Of course if they secure the drug patents they can license bigger pharmaceutical concerns –CIPLA comes to mind, to help in the wider distribution of Covidex.
Beyond what government is willing to provide financially, which is a drop in the bucket, to tap into the trillions of dollars of funding sloshing around the world a restructuring of the company to reflect this new reality is imperative.
There are basically two kinds of financing that can take Jena Herbals to the next level – debt and equity financing. Each has its pros and cons and its likely that Jena Herbals will need to use a combination of both to further its ambitions to get its treatment into every covid sufferer’s hand.
In the wider world there are people specialised in financing pharmaceutical developments and these maybe the best to help, not just any Tom, Dick and Harry with a few billions shillings.
In both cases, given the huge funding they will require they will need to convince funders that their ownership of the relevant intellectual properties are ironclad – would make no sense to put money in the business and then the next day the most valuable property is pulled out from under their feet, that they can indeed ramp production of the drug and finally that the investors will see a return on their investment.
On a national strategic level, government needs to secure supplies of the trees responsible for the active ingredient of Covidex. A statutory instrument banning the cutting down of the tree may a good start and incentivising tree farmers to start planting the valuable tree may be another. It was good to hear though that Jena Herbals is working on regenrating the active ingredient using tissue cultures, that would spare the widespread cutting down of these trees. While its only the bark that is required in some cases, don’t put it past us to hack down whole trees to harvest the bark.
"It also make sense to raise the secuirty status around the plant and the Dr Ogwang himself. Billions of dollars have been sunk into the Covid-19 fight, which money may go up in smoke if Covidex gets wider acceptance....
