EU-Africa PerMed (Building Links Between Europe and Africa in Personalised* Medicine) is an international project funded by the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 programme. Its goal is to integrate more African countries into the global Precision Medicine (PM) research agenda by facilitating their participation in the International Consortium for Personalised Medicine (ICPerMed) and by strengthening collaborations between Africa and Europe in areas of mutual interest.
Africa continues to face a heavy disease burden, affecting around one billion people and resulting in significant annual productivity losses. The COVID-19 pandemic has further exacerbated healthcare inequities and impacted African economies. By involving African countries in the global PM agenda, the continent can benefit from innovative diagnostic and treatment methods, access cutting-edge technologies, and address both infectious and non-communicable diseases in a sustainable way – ultimately making healthcare more efficient and equitable across Africa.
The EU-Africa PerMed Initiative
Launched in February 2021, the EU-Africa PerMed project has led several key stakeholder engagement efforts. The first stakeholder workshop, held in February 2022, introduced African stakeholders to the project and ICPerMed, outlining how the remaining three years of planned activities could best address African needs and expectations.
In February 2023, the second workshop focused on understanding the significance of Precision Medicine, as well as exploring the challenges and opportunities in fostering collaboration between Africa and Europe.
The third and final stakeholder workshop, held in June 2024, unveiled the EU-Africa PerMed action plan. Stakeholders discussed recommendations for the future, including strategies for sustaining collaboration and supporting the development of regional PerMed consortia in Africa. To date, one of the project’s key achievements has been the establishment of regional groups in Southern, Eastern, Northern, and West-Central Africa, all working toward advancing PM on the continent.
Pharmalys Ltd at the Third EU-Africa PerMed Workshop
Pharmalys Ltd was actively involved in the last EU-Africa PerMed workshop, where Marieme Ba, CEO participated in shaping the future of PM collaboration between Europe and Africa. Stakeholders discussed the two components of the action plan:
- The ‘Precision Medicine Adopting environment’, which focuses on creating a comprehensive PM system of health that addresses a wide range of diseases and health conditions. This system involves diverse technical, medical, and stakeholder fields, including diagnostics, treatment, prevention.
- ‘Genetics in Precision Medicine’, which highlights Africa’s genetic diversity. Despite this diversity, African populations remain underrepresented in global genetic studies and databases. This section of the plan emphasises concrete actions to ensure that Africa’s genetic data is included in the broader PM research landscape.
At Pharmalys Ltd, we are committed to excellence and staying at the forefront of medical, research, and scientific developments. Our experience in clinical research across both communicable and non-communicable diseases informs our understanding of the shift from traditional, one-size-fits-all treatments to precision-based medicine. PM relies on tools like Big Data, artificial intelligence, omics technologies, pharmaco-omics, environmental and social factors, and the integration of these with preventive and public health. Together, these advancements form a comprehensive approach that will transform how medicine is practised in the future.
* ‘Precision Medicine, also referred to as ‘Personalised Medicine’, is a term which refers to tailoring treatments to subpopulations of people based on their susceptibility to specific diseases or their response to particular medicines. This term has largely replaced ‘Personalised Medicine’, which was previously used but often misunderstood to mean treatment customised for an individual. Other terms such as stratified medicine, targeted therapy, and deep phenotyping have also been used in the literature. In this article, we use the term ‘Precision Medicine’ except when referring to specific initiatives like EU-Africa PerMed or ICPerMed. From Naithani N. et al. Precision medicine: Concept and tools. Medical Journal Armed Forces India 77 (2021) 249-257.
Véronique Ropion, MD
Strategic Projects Director, Pharmalys Ltd
