Ramaphosa launches FuturePHARMA facility at CSIR Waterkloof campus
South Africa takes a major step towards continental health sovereignty as a multi-billion-rand research and manufacturing hub opens in Tshwane.
President Cyril Ramaphosa launched the FuturePHARMA facility at the CSIR campus in Waterkloof, Tshwane, calling it a milestone in South Africa’s push for health sovereignty.
He said the Covid-19 pandemic showed developing countries must build local scientific, technological, and manufacturing capability if they are to protect public health. Health security, economic resilience, and national development are linked, he said.
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The facility brings research, technology, process development, clinical work, regulation, manufacturing, investment, and procurement into one ecosystem. It provides shared infrastructure and expertise for pharmaceutical process development, scale-up, and technology transfer between laboratory research and commercial production.
Ramaphosa said the facility should not be seen as a conventional commercial manufacturing plant. Its value lies in shared capability that is often too specialised and costly for individual researchers, universities, and emerging companies to set up alone.
Success will depend on partnerships between government, universities, research councils, industry, regulators, and investors. It will be measured by technologies developed, companies supported, skills strengthened, and innovations that reach the public.
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Government departments must work together, Ramaphosa said. The department of science, technology and innovation leads on research and skills, while the department of health leads on medicines and vaccines. The department of trade, industry and competition leads on localisation and manufacturing, while national treasury handles public financing, and the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority must clear products through the correct pathways.
The emerging pharmaceutical roadmap and the vaccine innovation and manufacturing strategy should connect research to health priorities and market demand. FuturePHARMA and manufacturers, such as Biovac, should complement each other in a wider value chain.
The African Union and the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention have put local manufacturing at the centre of the continent’s health security agenda. South Africa is ready to use its research institutions, universities, regulators, and factories in regional partnerships, with the facility opening collaboration for African researchers and companies.
Ramaphosa said laboratory ideas must become technologies, enterprises, products, and industries to grow the economy and create jobs. He congratulated the CSIR, its scientists and technical teams, and the partners who established the facility.
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