OnCo
ideasIdea

Fund an oncology joint assessment unit inside the African Medicines Agency

Africa's new continental medicines agency could assess cancer drugs once for 55 countries. It needs oncology reviewers and a reliance rule to do it.

The African Medicines Agency is becoming operational, building on AVAREF and regional harmonisation initiatives (EAC, SADC). Oncology medicines are a small share of African registrations and most national agencies lack oncology reviewers. The proposal is a philanthropically funded oncology unit within AMA running continental joint assessments, relying on WHO-listed authority reports, with member states committing to national decisions within 60 days of an AMA recommendation. The WHO/St Jude childhood cancer medicines platform provides demand.

Hypothesis
Oncology medicines assessed through the AMA unit are registered in at least 20 African countries within one year of recommendation, compared with a current pattern where most new oncology drugs are registered in fewer than five African countries five years after first global approval.
Rationale
Joint assessment has already cut registration times in East Africa; the missing pieces are oncology expertise and a binding timeline. Pooled assessment also makes small markets worth filing in.
What would test it
Fund the unit for five years and track the number of countries registering each assessed oncology medicine and the median time to registration.
Maturity
speculative
Who has to act
philanthropy
Cost to try
Medium ($1M to $50M)
Years to first evidence
5
Bottlenecks it attacks

Connected

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