Africa to get first manufacturing hub for next-generation malaria nets

One of the biggest producers of mosquito nets globally is partnering with the Nigerian government to establish a facility in the country that would serve as the first manufacturing hub for insecticide-treated nets in West Africa, and the first across the continent to produce a new generation of nets that are deemed more effective in fighting insecticide-resistant mosquitoes. Last week, Vestergaard signed a memorandum of understanding with the Nigerian government, paving the way for it to enter into a joint venture with a local manufacturing partner to produce its dual-active ingredient insecticide-treated nets called PermaNet Dual. Dual-active ingredient nets, as the name suggests, contain two different insecticides. They are a new generation of nets deemed more effective than the standard insecticide-treated nets when used against mosquitoes that have formed resistance to pyrethroid, the key ingredient in malaria nets for decades. Resistance to the insecticide is widespread in Africa and is seen as a threat to malaria control efforts. If successful, it will build on the continent’s efforts to boost local manufacturing of health products — a hot topic also among those working on malaria. “The core of this is about localization, local ownership,” Vestergaard CEO Amar Ali told Devex. “And you know, that's the trend. That is the correct trend.” It takes a village Discussions on the hub started just in March this year, but they were able to move “very quickly” on it due in large part to the Nigerian government’s support. “The catalyst was a government that's very enabling,” Ali said, saying Nigerian Minister of Health and Social Welfare Muhammad Ali Pate and his team and others in government “are very, very supportive of encouraging health value chains to be more localized. And for something like this, you really need strong government support,” Ali said. But equally important will be support from development financing institutions such as the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation and MedAccess, a social finance company founded by the U.K. aid development finance institution British International Investment. MedAccess’ main purpose is to improve access to medical innovations. Both are supportive of regional manufacturing efforts on the continent, and MedAccess has expressed interest in exploring how innovative financing can support the initiative, according to a news release. Ali said they are discussing opportunities for financing with both institutions. “These investments are risky, extremely risky,” Ali said. “You see actually a lot of companies, unfortunately, leaving Nigeria and Africa in general right now [because] it's difficult to operate. [There’s] a lot of economic, political risks. So it's really helpful to have development financing in there to help absorb some of that, to help give some political cover, if you like.” Several multinational companies have shuttered operations in the continent in recent years due to a variety of factors, including increased government regulations, bureaucracy, poor infrastructure causing interruptions to production, dollar shortages, and falling demand for products as populations are left with lower spending power due to currency depreciation, according to a Bloomberg report. There are several ways financing from these institutions could help, Ali said. One example: Tech transfer. “One of the things that we're doing here is we're trying to build up a local player. So this is going to be a joint venture … with a local partner, and over time, we want to transfer our technology to that local partner to build up their capacity,” he said. That can take years and lots of money to train people, build the facilities, and transfer the know-how in manufacturing the nets. But building that local capacity also has benefits, such as having the new types of nets manufactured closer to where they’re most needed. Africa accounts for 94% of malaria cases globally — with Nigeria as the country with the highest burden — making it a massive market for insecticide-treated nets. One of the biggest producers of insecticide-treated nets is the Tanzania-based A to Z Textile Mills Limited, but it currently does not produce dual-active ingredient nets. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria estimates that 60% of insecticide-treated nets used for malaria prevention will be the dual-active ingredient type within three years and that this trend will only grow, according to a Global Fund spokesperson. The fund has been investing along with other organizations for the scaled rollout of these new nets. In 2023, it launched a new financing mechanism that uses advanced market commitments, such as volume guarantees, to accelerate the introduction of health products in countries. The first agreement under the new mechanism was with Vestergaard, for its PermaNet Dual. The long view Vestergaard is currently finalizing the selection of a local partner to work with in Nigeria, with priority given to those that already have existing facilities to sew and pack the nets, a company spokesperson wrote to Devex. The aim however is for the hub to manufacture nets from start to finish, according to the spokesperson. “We will be working with the selected partner to build out the operation into a full service that can make the dual active-ingredient nets from scratch. This will include technology transfer and capacity building … [and] we are committed to making this a state-of-the-art facility that runs on green energy,” the spokesperson added. Once established and fully functioning, the company expects the facility to produce 10 million PermaNet Duals per year, and in turn create 600 jobs in the country. Over time, it may also bring down the cost of the nets, which are currently priced at roughly $3 each, Ali said. “At the moment, you've got these countries primarily in Asia where the textile industries are very sophisticated, extremely productive, very well established for decades. And it will take time for other countries to compete with that. So that's part of the process we need to go through,” he said. Value chains — the range of activities involved in creating a product — tend to be more expensive in Africa due to a lack of investment and infrastructure, and it takes time to build that, Ali said. But in the case of the manufacturing hub in Nigeria, over time, as they train the workforce and efficiencies are built, he hopes “the cost will come down, and we should get somewhere close to parity.” “It's not real yet, but in six months or so, I'm very much hoping we'll be building and then in a year or so … that we actually have some real nets coming out,” Ali said.