Clinical trials in Africa a global imperative

Dr Lutz Hegemann, Group Head Corporate Affairs and Global head, Novartis during an Interview with The Standard. (Collins Oduor, Standard)

As I travelled across Kenya last October, I was amazed by the progress local researchers have made in confronting one of the great challenges of modern medicine. My African medical colleagues often have to treat their patients with medicines that have not undergone inclusive and representative clinical development across ethnicities in other parts of the world.

As part of my role at a global medicines company, I find myself asking how I would have reacted to parallel circumstances in my years as a young physician in Europe. What if I had been asked to treat my overwhelmingly Caucasian patients with medicines that had been tested only in African clinical trials? What if no one had ever studied the impact on safety or efficacy of those medicines taking into account European genes, a European diet, bitter winters and summer holidays? Would I treat patients with medicines that I did not think had been adequately tested or would I leave their conditions untreated?