Stakeholders have met in Lagos to drive collaborations and improve medical care for persons diagnosed with cancer.

They gathered at the maiden Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) Oncology Summit, which drew strategic partners and participants, including 200 medical professionals and over 11 tertiary hospitals, as well as over 10 external collaborators from diverse institutions like the University of Chicago and American Oncology Institute, India.

Others are American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO); Bio Ventures for Global Health (BVGH); Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre; American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) and University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre (UPMC).

Healthcare has been an investment sector of focus for the Authority.
It set up the NSIA Healthcare Development Investment Company (NHDIC) to address medical infrastructure gaps, develop strategic collaborations to improve patient care and enhance the talent pool of medical professionals.

In 2019, the agency established the NSIA-LUTH Cancer Centre (NLCC) – a modern out-patient oncology centre, which has since attended to over 10,000 unique patients.

It also invested in two diagnostic projects co-located within the Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital and Federal Medical Centre, Umuahia, Abia State.

The NSIA is in the process of scaling these interventions, with three additional oncology centres, 23 additional diagnostic centres and seven catheterisation laboratories across the six geopolitical zones

Its wholly owned medical services portfolio company, Medserve, has been established to execute the projects.

Furthermore, given the prevalence of outdated medical equipment, poor operation and maintenance, the NSIA raised another wholly-owned subsidiary called Equilease Systems Limited to offer alternative financial solutions to care providers to ease the burden of high acquisition and maintenance cost of modern medical equipment through strategic partnerships with Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs).