Adverse drug reactions caused by our population being prescribed ‘one-size-fits-all’ treatment regimens are costing the South African government and private medical insurers a significant amount of money, and prevent the democratisation of healthcare across the country.

Using research established at the CSIR –  in partnership with CradleOmics, a Digital Precision Medicine solution, whereby clinicians can access simple, predictive treatment information based on inexpensive genetic tests specially tailored to the African population, – would create a self-sustaining commercial initiative saving money and lives.

As South Africa is a melting pot of races and ethnicities, research that predicts pharmaceutical ‘best-treatment’ outcomes based on the country’s inherent genetics would be applicable to the rest of Africa and the world. Last year, the South African government spent an estimated R12 billion on adverse drug reactions.

Therefore, the establishment of such a platform would provide much needed pharmacovigilence in SA, and furthermore create data sets that could be commercially made available to international pharma for reassessing their drug design for the African continent.