The Gates Foundation has announced a $5 million grant to Axmed, a healthcare technology company revolutionizing how essential medicines are procured across Growth Markets. The grant will function as a matching fund, providing a 1:1 match for government procurement of vital maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH) commodities through the Axmed Medicines Platform.
This grant will unlock up to $10 million in MNCH procurement across a selection of Sub-Saharan African countries. Its objective is to bolster national procurement capacities by offering Ministries of Health immediate liquidity, ensuring access to quality-assured MNCH commodities. They will also leverage the benefits of pooled procurement and aggregated demand. This approach is expected to drive both significant cost-efficiency and enhanced supply security.
The initiative was officially unveiled during a high-level roundtable held concurrently with the 78th World Health Assembly, bringing together Ministers of Health, national procurement leads, and representatives from key multilateral organizations and philanthropic partners.
“Reducing the number of preventable deaths of mothers and babies is key to our work in sub-Saharan Africa,” stated Cynthia Mwase, Director of Health, Africa, Gates Foundation. “This partnership with Axmed and local health leaders is an important step forward in ensuring that life-saving innovations reach the communities where they can make the greatest difference—so that more families can experience healthy pregnancies, safe births, and strong starts to life.”
Axmed’s digital marketplace acts as a critical link, connecting institutional buyers directly with vetted suppliers. By aggregating demand across multiple countries, the platform consolidates procurement at scale, leading to significant savings. In 2024, Ministries and other procurers utilizing the platform achieved average savings of 20–30%, with specific MNCH products seeing cost reductions of up to 80%.
Beyond procurement, Axmed also collaborates with global logistics providers to manage end-to-end delivery, ensuring full tracking and traceability from manufacturer to the last-mile distribution point. The platform has already been successfully deployed across various low- and middle-income countries to support national and regional procurement strategies.
“This fund is a clear example of how catalytic financing and technology can work together to deliver immediate and lasting impact,” remarked Emmanuel Akpakwu, Founder & CEO of Axmed. “Our goal is not just to deliver quality medicines faster and more affordably, but to help build more resilient and efficient procurement systems for the future.”