TrueSpec Africa

Franck Verzefé is a pharmacist who is fighting falsified medicine in Africa. He is the inventor of TrueSpec, a portable device that uses artificial intelligence  to allow hospitals, pharmacies, pharmaceutical laboratories and quality control centers to determine whether or not a drug is genuine in less than 20 seconds, anytime and anywhere in both cities and villages by analyzing the chemical composition of drugs. Franck Verzefé is a member of  UN/International Telecommunication Union and the World Health Organization’s Focus Group on Artificial Intelligence for Health (AI4H). At AI4H Franck leads the topic group Artificial intelligence for detection of falsified Medicine; which is responsible for the development of global standard for evaluation and benchmarking of AI pharmaceutical systems. Franck  was named among the top 5 African social entrepreneurs in 2017 by the African Youth Award. He was also recently ranked by WHO among the top 30 African innovators.

42% of falsified drugs in the World are found in Africa where up to 169,000 children die every year from pneumonia and an estimated 116,000 people die annually from malaria due to falsified drugs.

Existing drug testing devices are offered at a price African countries can’t afford. With a price tag in the neighborhood of 60.000 € per device, many healthcare facilities are unable to get the technology to stop counterfeited medicine and people are afraid to report fake drug traffickers.

That is why I created a device and a platform. A device is call TrueSpec and allow health walkers to know if their medicines are genuine or fake in less than 20s and also a platform to give the possibility to anyone to denounce and tell their own story with fake medicines

The presence of substandard and falsified medical products in countries and their use by patients threatens to undermine progress towards meeting the Sustainable Development Goals. Such products may be of poor quality, unsafe or ineffective, threatening the health of those that take them. 

In Africa, A surge in falsified and poor quality medicines means that 250 000 children a year are thought to die after receiving shoddy or outright fake drugs intended to treat malaria and pneumonia alone.

Illegal trade takes places around the world. The world health Organization (WHO) estimates that counterfeit medicines worth 73 billion euros trades annually. The WHO estimates that in some countries in Africa more than 30 percent of medicine in circulation are fakes and in others countries without  an appropriate regulation up to 50 percent of medicines are falsified.

Anything that makes money will be counterfeited . this affects patented medications as well as generics. Expensive, prescription drugs, such as those used in AIDS or cancer therapy, are specially lucrative for dubious businesses. Antibiotics, antimalarial are the most commonly counterfeited drugs, particularly in low-income nations where medicines are prohibitively expensive for many people.

True-Spec Africa, is  the company that gives the opportunity for everyone to have access to genuine medicine. TrueSpec Africa has  developed  a portable device that uses artificial intelligence to allow hospitals, pharmacies, pharmaceutical laboratories and quality control centers to determine whether or not a drug is genuine in less than 10 seconds  anytime and anywhere in the world. TrueSpec Africa is also a a platform that give the possibility to anyone to denounce and tell their own story with fake medicines

The falsification of medicines affects everyone, especially disadvantaged populations such as low-income populations and refugees living in precarious conditions. tens of thousands dying from $30 billion fake drugs.

One in 10 drugs sold in developing countries is fake or substandard, leading to tens of thousands of deaths, many of them of African children given ineffective treatments for pneumonia and malaria said WHO.

the first users of our analysis devices are healthcare professionals, hospitals, pharmacy, drug control center but also customs for monitoring incoming drugs and the first users of our awareness and denunciation platform are ordinary citizens who want things to change and with each alert given, the relevant organization is alarmed

Denounce and raise awareness among the population of the danger of fake medicines is a constant battle, this goes through three stages, awareness, a practical action which is technological and a participatory inclusion of the population in improving their own health by denouncing or sharing their personal story

when I was student i wondered how people could know for sure if a drug is genuine or falsified.

After this question, i began doing research on the topic and realized that the problem of falsified and substandard drugs was killing thousands of Africans annually and that drug testing devices, that could solve the problem, were too expensive; ranging between $ 40 000 - $ 60 000 a device at the time.

i then decided to develop a means to do molecular analysis to help solve the problem. Knowing that my research would cost me a lot of money, i looked for a lowhanging-fruit opportunity in my city that could bring me some money that i could use to fund my research. i noted the challenges when it comes to accessing real estate and decided to provide a solution by creating a real estate agency named Immo Bethel. In six months, i earned nearly $57 000.

i then built a professional team and started TrueSpec Africa. Today TrueSpec Africa develops an artificial intelligence, which coupled with a spectrometry device, enables identification of the chemical composition of drugs and structuring the data obtained in less than 20 seconds.

Imagine a poor African mother who gives up food for herself so that she can afford essential medicine for her desperately ill child. Now imagine that for her sacrifice, she winds up instead with a fake medicine. Unaware that she is a victim of criminal scam, she gives the fake medicine to her child, only to watch her child suffer or even die as a result.

This is a nightmare scene that’s repeated thousands of times every year across  Africa because of a multi-billion-dollar global trade in falsified medicines.

It is impossible for me to accept the idea that the drugs we buy are responsible for the deterioration of our health. Faced with this situation, it was impossible for me to sit idly by. I am convinced that our action will allow the population to better protect themselves. To invest fully in the development of Africa. The whole international community must mobilize, families in Africa deserve it.

I am a pharmacist, since 2014 I have worked to improve the health of populations in Africa. My research in the area of falsified and substandard medicine lead me to develop a low-cost portable device that can analyze and detect falsified medicine in less than 10 seconds.  In 2017, I founded TrueSpec Africa, a company which mission is to help health professionals restore hope and save lives by facilitating the analysis of drugs through new technologies.

Our goal is to curb counterfeited medicine use by analysis and detection. We are able to do this by providing a platform for drug control.

My team and I are running a platform called the TrueSpec Africa ambassadors, which aims to teach the public about the dangers of falsifying drugs and the consequences to public health. This platform also gives the opportunity to all people, no matter where they reside, to denounce the presence of falsifying drugs and/or to support our cause by sharing their own story.

I am currently working with the WHO on the development of new drug testing technologies for LMICs, and I have been ranked by the WHO in the top 30 African innovators in the field of health.

I am a member of the ITU-WHO FGAI4H which is the ITU / WHO Focus Group on artificial intelligence for health (FG-AI4H) who works in partnership with the World Health Organization (WHO) to establish a standardized assessment framework for the evaluation of AI-based methods for health, diagnosis, triage or treatment decisions.

An expert estimates that a $1000 investment in counterfeit  drugs can result in a $20,000 return, which is 10 times the profit rate of trafficking heroin. For example, selling counterfeit sildenafil “can be as much as 2000 times more profitable” than selling cocaine. 

Trafficking in fake medicines is more dangerous than trafficking in drugs. My fight has already assaulted me with an armed attack  because traffickers have power and are sometimes high-ranking officials in the administration.

To face this problem, we have worked hard to gain credibility on the international level in order to create partnerships with large Organizations such as the WHO, the international telecommunication union that can support us and ensure implementation and continuity of our work in the African region.

I am convinced that our action will allow the population to be better protected from the counterfeit drugs. To invest fully in the development of Africa and offer it the bright future to which the continent is promised; the whole international community must mobilize. Families in Africa deserve it.

Thanks to my commitment in the field of health, I was also ranked by Avance Media in Africa, in the top 50 most influential young Cameroonians and the first in the category of science and technology.

I have been distinguished by several awards: 

1. I was named among the top 5 African social entrepreneurs in 2017 by the African Youth Award.

2. I was ranked by the African Entrepreneurship Award as part of the top 50 African entrepreneurs creating jobs and having a huge impact on the continent

3. I was also named by TedX Johanesburg as part of the top 100 innovators of the 100th millennium. 

4. Lastly, I was recently ranked by the WHO as among the top 30 African innovators

No

our project is innovative because it takes into account the African social and economic realities, we took corruption into consideration during the building process as it has the possibility of keeping in the cloud the history of analyzes on medicine so that those who do the analyzes do not not change the result.

It works online but also offline because the internet connection is not good in remote areas, goes off sometimes in urban areas and governments sometimes cut the internet connection during manifestations.

Given the strong growth in the use of mobile phones in Africa, we have paired our portable device with the mobile phone to reduce production costs and thanks to artificial intelligence, the results are given in less than 20 seconds instead of several hours, which reduces working time.

The problem: fake medicines are a global problem which affects all countries of the world but much more the low and middle income countries which represent 45% of the world market. All social strata face this problem and much more the poor, the populations being in areas with poor accessibility to medicines such as remote areas and refugee camps. Falsified medicines are found at different levels of the medicine supply chain, in the unofficial but also official circuit and one of the causes is the lack of analysis devices for medicines adapted to the economic and social realities of the countries Africans.

Our technological solution makes it possible to carry out drug analyzes anywhere and anytime, with or without an internet connection. And all the devices are geolocated and all the analyzes carried out are saved in our cloud, which allows us to avoid falsification of the results and to have statistics on the number of falsified medicines in a very precise region and help the competent authorities to take strategic decisions.

At the customs level, our device is at the forefront of drug analysis. We have identified the areas most in need of these devices to reduce the porosity of the medication monitoring means. These areas are customs, quality control laboratories, pharmaceutical depots, pharmacies and hospitals. To do this, users of our devices must either have a mobile phone or a computer and, at best, be connected to have the latest updates of drugs entered into the database.

Having a mobile phone is not a problem in Africa as the mobile phone penetration rate is high and in some countries such as Senegal is over 100%. One of the problems encountered is internet access, because in Africa the internet connection is not available everywhere and at all times. So we made a device capable of operating offline and online but the user to receive the new drugs that can be analyzed by the device, must log in and update.

people directly impacted the first year : 324

people indirectly affected the first year : 1 436 950

people directly impacted in five years : 1 700 000

people indirectly affected in five years : 16 349 500

our goal for next year is to reach a database of 10,000 drugs and to launch our product on the market.

our goal in five years is to be present in 50% of all of central and west Africa countries which suffers the most from the falsification of medicines in Africa. and similarly develop a portable device for effective drug analysis allowing everyone to perform analysis of their own drugs

we have difficulty accessing financing, we need to raise $ 1 million for the production of our devices, the database, our marketing, research and development.

we are also fought by counterfeiters who are resourceful

we work with phoenix lab which mission is to help structure the innovation ecosystems of French-speaking countries through training, incubation and funding of innovative projects,
to counter the strategies of counterfeiters wanting to slow us down in our work, we collaborate with international organizations such as the World Health Organisation(WHO); United Nations University (UNU); Iternational Telecommunication Uion(ITU) the anti-counterfeit drug research institute(IRACM), Global Health Strategies which help us by their institutional power to destroy or bypass counterfeiters  barriers.

World Health Organisation(WHO): facilitates collaboration with WHO certified drug analysis laboratories for the constitution of our database.

United Nations University(UNU):we are working on policies and mapping for the development of global standards and the evaluation of pharmaceutical systems.

International Telecommunication Union(ITU): we works in partnership with ITU to establish a standardized assessment framework for the evaluation of AI-based methods for Quality controls and healthcare. 

Global Health Strategies: we help in communication which plays a big role in prevention. They communicate that the problem and the different solutions and comments they work.

Anti-counterfeit drug institute(IRACM): acts as a bridge between African governments and us. Facilitates public private partnership

Phoenix lab: which mission is to help structure the innovation ecosystems of French-speaking countries through training, incubation and funding of innovative projects.

Tens of thousands dying from $30 billion fake drugs trade, WHO says. One in 10 drugs sold in developing countries is fake or substandard, leading to tens of thousands of deaths, many of them of African children given ineffective treatments for pneumonia and malaria.

one of the reasons for this high mortality rate due to fake drugs is the lack of drug analysis devices to carry out quality control of these drugs.

we therefore have thanks to nanotechnology and AI, create a portable device allowing to carry out drug analyzes in less than 20s everywhere and at any time and this device is mainly intended for all actors intervening in the chain of distribution of the drug such as Customs, drug control centers, pharmaceutical depots, pharmacies and hospitals. because falsification is done at different levels of the chain. These different types of clients will be able to place orders for our analysis device via our website or they can also buy it directly from one of our approved distribution centers.

we not only offer a product, but also an after-sales service which is training in the use of our product. the use of our device requires a mobile application, we have two versions, one free and one paid. with the paid one, the client will receive at the end of each month statistics on the number of drugs analyzed, the number of falsified drugs and those genuine.  And all this with the dates and places of analysis

our goal is to raise 1 million dollar, but knowing the difficulties related to funding in Africa, for an investment of $ 500,000, we will privilege the constitution of the database and will produce devices for customers who have already made a letter of intent to purchase our devices and this sale will allow us to refinance a second production. We are actively seek funding with our partners phoenix lab. since the beginning of the project we have had two investors who allowed us to reach this level of work

those who have invested are business angels and not organizations. and the type of funding  is equity.

we want to raise 1 million dollars in grant , debt or in equity

$ 213 196

MIT solve gives us the possibility to have  fund for our projects, and also the possibility of being in contact with major players in the  social entrepreneurship  field who can help us to facilitate the launch and growth of our activities.

MIT, USAIDS ,