The Gates Foundation is giving a major boost to maternal and child health in Sub-Saharan Africa with a $5 million grant to Axmed, a healthcare technology company transforming medicine access in emerging markets. The grant will be deployed as a 1:1 matching fund, helping governments procure critical maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH) commodities more efficiently and affordably.
Announced during a high-level roundtable at the 78th World Health Assembly, the initiative aims to unlock up to $10 million in MNCH procurements by incentivizing Ministries of Health to participate in pooled purchasing through the Axmed Medicines Platform.
Related Story: Axmed Secures $2 Million Seed Funding to Bridge the Gap in Global Healthcare Disparities
Tackling Persistent Gaps in Health Access
Every year, preventable health crises claim the lives of 287,000 women during childbirth and 2.3 million newborns in their first month of life, largely due to limited access to affordable, high-quality medicines. While proven interventions exist, barriers such as weak procurement systems, budget limitations, and fragmented supply chains often prevent timely delivery of essential drugs.
With global donor funding under pressure and many countries facing liquidity challenges, the new fund provides immediate financial flexibility. Governments can secure much-needed commodities while advancing long-term reforms in procurement infrastructure.
“This partnership with Axmed and local health leaders is an important step forward,” said Cynthia Mwase, Director of Health, Africa, at the Gates Foundation. “Our goal is to ensure life-saving innovations reach the communities that need them most—supporting healthy pregnancies, safe births, and strong starts to life.”
Digitizing Procurement for Scale and Impact
At the heart of this initiative is the Axmed Platform, a digital marketplace that connects institutional buyers—such as national health ministries—directly with vetted suppliers. By aggregating demand across multiple countries and leveraging economies of scale, Axmed has helped users achieve average cost savings of 20–30%, with certain MNCH commodities seeing reductions of up to 80%.
The platform doesn’t just connect buyers and sellers—it manages end-to-end logistics, ensuring traceability and timely delivery from manufacturers to last-mile clinics. Already in use across several low- and middle-income countries, the system is helping reshape procurement norms in global health.
“We’ve seen firsthand how the platform can deliver high-quality medicines more efficiently,” said Dr. Loko Abraham, CEO of Rwanda Medical Supply. “This fund will expand that impact further, enabling smarter, faster procurement with real results for our most vulnerable populations.”
A Model for Catalytic Health Financing
For Axmed, the grant is more than financial support—it’s validation of a broader mission to make health systems more resilient, transparent, and equitable. By marrying catalytic funding with technology-driven procurement, the initiative offers a model for how global health partners can collaborate to accelerate access and outcomes.
“Our aim is to build procurement systems that serve today’s needs and tomorrow’s challenges,” said Emmanuel Akpakwu, Founder and CEO of Axmed. “We’re not just delivering medicines—we’re delivering impact.”
As African countries look to build more robust health systems, partnerships like this are paving the way—ensuring that no life is lost for lack of medicine that already exists.
