Bio Usawa's Kigali Plant Aims to Bring Monoclonal Antibody Production to Rwanda in Late 2026
Kigali-headquartered biotechnology company Bio Usawa is pressing ahead with its monoclonal antibody manufacturing facility, which is expected to launch in the fourth quarter of 2026, Business Tech Africa reported on October 17. The company says the plant will be the first monoclonal antibody manufacturing facility in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Monoclonal antibodies are biologic medicines used to treat certain cancers, eye diseases and autoimmune conditions. Their production requires specialised equipment, controlled environments and people trained to work with living cells. Such medicines have largely been produced outside Africa, and patients on the continent have often faced erratic supplies and high prices.
Bio Usawa's ophthalmology product BioUcenta was approved by the Rwanda Food and Drugs Authority in October 2025. It is a biosimilar of ranibizumab, used to treat eye conditions including diabetic macular edema and age-related macular degeneration. The Rwanda FDA is recognised by the World Health Organization as a Maturity Level 3 regulatory authority. The company has previously said the therapy is expected to be priced as much as 80 percent below Lucentis.
On September 14, 2026, Bio Usawa and medicines procurement platform Axmed announced a strategic collaboration linking Bio Usawa's biologics development and manufacturing capability with Axmed's procurement marketplace for low- and middle-income countries, initially focusing on ophthalmology and retinal diseases. 'Manufacturing is only one part of the access equation,' said Dr. Patrick Lukulay, Chief Operating Officer of Bio Usawa. 'We need to make sure that medicines made in Africa can move efficiently through the health systems that serve African patients.'
Bio Usawa was founded by Dr. Menghis Bairu and Richard Chin. In January 2026 the company published a request for proposals seeking African partners for cold-chain logistics, warehousing, customs clearance, product registration and distribution to hospitals. The plant's full production capacity and job numbers have not been publicly confirmed by the company. (GSM, based on reporting by Business Tech Africa and GlobeNewswire releases)
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: Kigali 城市远眺。View over Kigali. Photo by Honeybarger, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
