Dr. Folarin Oluwanimbe Akinsiku is a dentist and the author of the book, International Framework For Investing In Healthcare. Akinsiku’s professional path integrates dentistry, data, and business to address how healthcare systems can become both sustainable and investment-worthy. In this interview with ADEWALE MOMOH, he explores the new book and Nigeria’s healthcare system, identifying policy and trust deficit as the greatest obstacle to unlocking healthcare investment in the country. Akinsiku advocates building trust through transparency as the remedy, noting that investors and policymakers must work together to create credible systems rooted in accurate data, enforceable public–private partnership (PPP) frameworks, and clearly defined exit mechanisms.
Can you give us a brief background about yourself?
I am Dr Folarin Oluwanimbe Akinsiku, a dentist by training and an MBA candidate at the University of Kansas, where I specialise in business intelligence, venture commercialisation, and healthcare investment strategy.
My professional path integrates three worlds – dentistry, data, and business – to address how healthcare systems can become both sustainable and investment-worthy. Over the years, I’ve moved beyond clinical dentistry into health entrepreneurship and digital innovation, building models that connect medical expertise with financial and operational efficiency. I have led projects in dental practice development, launched a digital startup, and explored data-driven tools to improve patient access and operational performance.
Most recently, as a KU Venture Development Fellow, I’ve worked on the commercialisation of new healthcare technologies, translating research innovations into viable market solutions.
This cross-disciplinary experience has deepened my conviction that the future of global health, especially in emerging economies, depends on frameworks that unite clinical outcomes, business sustainability, and investor confidence. My ongoing mission is to create and advocate for sustainable healthcare investment structures that empower professionals, attract capital, and ultimately expand access to quality care.
As a dentist, why did you delve into publishing a book?
Because there’s a growing gap between clinical brilliance and business understanding in the healthcare world. Every day, we see brilliant clinicians, dentists, nurses, laboratory scientists, pharmacists, physiotherapists, surgeons, and specialists doing exceptional work within hospital walls. They’re experts in diagnosis, treatment, and patient care, yet many struggle to translate that expertise into sustainable systems or successful ventures.
Too often, the people with medical knowledge lack the business acumen to bring their ideas to life. Meanwhile, those with the financial means to run hospitals or clinics often lack the clinical insight needed to make sound healthcare decisions. The result? A disconnect between vision and execution and sometimes, a compromise in quality care.
The book, International Framework For Investing In Healthcare, is my way of bridging that gap. It’s not just about dentistry or medicine; it’s about empowering healthcare professionals to think beyond the operating room to understand management, strategy, and entrepreneurship. This is because when clinicians learn to lead with both skill and structure, healthcare becomes not just a service but a sustainable impact.
Going by the book, why is healthcare a good financial investment, not just a cost?
Healthcare is too often viewed merely as social spending, a cost to be managed rather than an asset to be cultivated. Yet in reality, healthcare is one of the most powerful forms of productive capital a nation can invest in. Every dollar spent on improving health strengthens labour productivity, enhances innovation capacity, and increases a country’s overall competitiveness in the global economy.
This book challenges the traditional perception that healthcare drains public resources. Instead, it presents healthcare as an engine of growth, a sector that when designed strategically, delivers dual returns – financial profit and social value.
Well-structured healthcare projects not only improve public health outcomes but also generate measurable economic impact. For instance, investments in diagnostic centres or primary-care infrastructure do more than save lives. They create employment opportunities, reduce workplace absenteeism, and foster an environment that attracts partnerships from pharmaceutical firms, insurance providers, and technology innovators.
In this way, healthcare functions both as an economic multiplier, stimulating growth across multiple industries, and as a stabiliser, strengthening the social fabric of communities. Ultimately, healthcare is not just about curing illness; it’s about building resilient societies and sustainable economies.
How does your unique background as a doctor and business expert shape the book’s message?
Having walked both paths as a clinician treating patients and as a strategist building business models, I’ve witnessed firsthand the tension that often exists between patient-care ethics and investor expectations. On one side is the heart of healthcare: Compassion, service, and the oath to do no harm. On the other is the engine that sustains it: Financing, scalability, and return on investment. Too often, these two worlds are seen as opposites, locked in a zero-sum struggle between care and capital. This book exists to challenge that divide. It demonstrates that profitability and compassion are not mutually exclusive. They are, in fact, interdependent when healthcare is designed with purpose.
My training as a dentist taught me the value of precision, empathy, and patient-centred decision-making. My MBA and venture commercialisation experience, on the other hand, provided the analytical discipline to design innovative financing structures and evaluate healthcare ventures through the lens of sustainability and scalability.
By merging these perspectives, this work becomes more than a theoretical text; it is a practical manual for clinicians who want to think like investors and for investors who want to think like healers. It offers frameworks for bridging empathy with enterprise, ensuring that healthcare innovation remains both financially viable and ethically grounded. The future of healthcare belongs to those who can honour both the science of healing and the strategy of sustainability.
What would you say is the biggest impediment to private investment in Nigeria’s health sector?
The greatest obstacle to unlocking healthcare investment is not a shortage of ideas or opportunities; it is the policy and trust deficit that continues to plague the sector. Investors are often hesitant, not because they doubt the potential of healthcare, but because they fear the uncertainty that surrounds it.
Unpredictable regulations, weak enforcement of contracts, and a fragmented reimbursement ecosystem create an environment where risk frequently outweighs reward. In many cases, promising healthcare projects collapse not due to poor planning or lack of innovation, but because of a deficit of institutional confidence and the absence of reliable data to guide decision-making. When transparency is missing, even the most well-intentioned partnerships struggle to thrive.
The remedy lies in building trust through transparency. Investors and policymakers must work together to create credible systems that inspire confidence; systems rooted in accurate data, enforceable public–private partnership (PPP) frameworks, and clearly defined exit mechanisms. These elements do more than protect investor capital; they signal long-term stability, accountability, and shared value. When the rules are clear and the numbers are credible, healthcare stops being perceived as a philanthropic obligation and starts being recognised for what it truly is: A viable, high-impact investment that drives both economic and social transformation.
Which country’s health model should Nigeria copy and why?
No single country offers a perfect blueprint for healthcare reform, but Nigeria can draw valuable lessons from both the United States and Singapore, two nations that represent distinct yet complementary strengths.
The U.S. model demonstrates the power of entrepreneurial innovation, where medical technology, venture capital, and private enterprise drive rapid advancement in diagnostics, therapeutics, and healthcare delivery.
Conversely, Singapore exemplifies disciplined governance, strong regulatory oversight, and seamless public–private coordination. It’s a system that prioritises efficiency, transparency, and accountability in every layer of healthcare management.
For Nigeria, the path forward lies in crafting a hybrid model that blends the creative dynamism of the U.S. with the institutional discipline of Singapore. This means fostering an environment where private investors and innovators are encouraged to thrive, but within a policy framework that enforces clear standards, data-driven regulation, and ethical accountability. Such a localised approach would not only attract investment but also ensure that healthcare delivery remains equitable, efficient, and sustainable. By combining the American spirit of innovation with Singaporean precision in governance, Nigeria can build a healthcare system that is both globally competitive and locally responsive, where excellence is incentivised, and accountability is non-negotiable.
Do you think this framework will stop doctors and nurses from leaving Nigeria under the ongoing brain-drain syndrome?
We must make staying not just patriotic but also economically and professionally rewarding. The solution is not to discourage migration through sentiment but to reimagine opportunity at home. My proposed framework centres on Diaspora-backed investment vehicles, innovative financing models that allow Nigerian professionals abroad to co-own, fund, or partner in local healthcare ventures.
This approach transforms the Diaspora from passive remitters into active stakeholders in national development. Imagine a system where clinicians and healthcare entrepreneurs collaborate to build modern, well-equipped medical centres that are both patient-centred and profit-conscious; facilities that offer profit-sharing arrangements, structured mentorship programmes, and research exposure comparable to global standards. In such an environment, the choice to remain in Nigeria becomes not a sacrifice but a strategic career decision.
When professionals see that their expertise can yield both impact and income, migration becomes optional rather than inevitable. Retention will naturally follow when we align the core incentives that matter most: professional dignity, financial security, and opportunities for global collaboration.
By creating systems that reward excellence and innovation, Nigeria can shift from being a nation that exports talent to one that cultivates and retains it.
Don’t you think it is abnormal that medical students still in training already aspire to flee the country?
It’s not abnormal; it’s symptomatic. What we often describe as the “brain drain” is, in reality, a rational response to a broken incentive system. Young doctors are not fleeing opportunity; they are fleeing frustration. When they look around and see senior colleagues struggling to serve patients without basic infrastructure, juggling multiple jobs just to make ends meet, and receiving little recognition or fair compensation, migration begins to look less like ambition and more like survival.
Their decisions are not rooted in disloyalty but in disillusionment. They are reacting to a system that does not reward excellence or protect their professional dignity. To change this narrative, we must treat not the symptom but the cause by rebuilding hope within the profession.
That means investing in mentorship programmes that connect young practitioners with visionary leaders, offering competitive remuneration that reflects both skill and sacrifice, and amplifying visible success stories of those who chose to stay, build, and thrive within the system.
The true cure for medical migration is to make staying home a viable and fulfilling choice. We must prove, through structure and example, that patriotism and prosperity can coexist in medicine and that one can serve one’s nation without sacrificing one’s dreams. When the system begins to honour its healers, they will no longer feel the need to heal elsewhere.
With your experience, what do you think is actually wrong with the Nigerian health system, and how do you think it can be fully tackled?
The fundamental issue confronting Nigeria’s healthcare sector is not medical; it is structural and governance-related. The system’s weaknesses stem from fragmentation, poor continuity, and the absence of a unified vision that transcends political cycles. Health programmes are often launched with enthusiasm but abandoned midway due to leadership changes or inconsistent policy direction. This lack of institutional memory prevents long-term planning and undermines public confidence.
Beyond this, Nigeria’s health ecosystem struggles with limited data transparency and misaligned incentives. We rarely track or evaluate health outcomes with the rigour necessary to inform strategy, and even when data exist, they are often unreliable or inaccessible.
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unding flows are largely reactive, driven by emergencies and donor priorities, rather than being strategically structured to build sustainable systems.
To change this trajectory, Nigeria must embrace an investment mindset that focuses on building systems, not isolated projects. The goal should not be another temporary initiative or ad hoc intervention but a comprehensive framework that sustains itself through accountability and results.
A viable solution is the creation of a National Health Investment Plan (NHIP), which is a long-term roadmap that integrates Public–Private Partnerships (PPPs), Diaspora capital, and regional infrastructure funds. Such a plan would mobilise both domestic and global resources while establishing clear performance benchmarks and transparent governance mechanisms.
When healthcare financing is guided by results, data, and accountability, quality and access naturally follow. The transformation of Nigeria’s health sector will not come from more spending but from smarter investing in systems that deliver value, in structures that endure, and in governance that inspires trust.
What is the most exciting new health technology for Africa?
I am particularly excited about the transformative potential of AI-driven diagnostic platforms and portable imaging and laboratory technologies that have the power to leapfrog Africa’s infrastructure barriers.
For decades, access to quality healthcare across the continent has been constrained by limited facilities, uneven resource distribution, and high setup costs. But the new wave of innovation anchored in artificial intelligence, mobility, and data has the capacity to rewrite that story.
Imagine handheld diagnostic devices that connect seamlessly to smartphones and cloud-based systems, enabling real-time imaging and analysis for dentistry, cardiology, oncology, or maternal health. These tools eliminate the need for large hospital infrastructure and bring precision medicine directly to rural communities, where it is needed most.
A dental X-ray, a cardiac scan, or a prenatal check can now be performed and interpreted remotely, with results stored securely in the cloud and accessed by specialists anywhere in the world. When paired with blockchain-enabled health records, patients gain control over their data, ensuring transparency, security, and continuity of care.
Integrating mobile-money payment systems into this ecosystem completes the value chain, allowing patients to pay affordably and providers to sustain their services with accountability and efficiency. This technology stack – AI diagnostics, cloud connectivity, blockchain records, and mobile payments – has the potential to democratise healthcare delivery across the continent. It represents a future where innovation replaces infrastructure as the driver of equity and where access to quality care becomes not a privilege of geography but a right of humanity.
If you were to advise medical professionals, particularly the younger ones, what is the best area of healthcare to invest in right now?
I would point their attention towards integrated ambulatory and diagnostic centres, teledentistry and telemedicine, and preventive health technologies. These are the future-facing sectors where innovation meets accessibility. They represent models that are scalable, require moderate capital expenditure, and generate steady, near-term cash flow – a rare combination in healthcare.
Rather than focusing solely on traditional hospital infrastructure, young professionals should begin to reimagine the healthcare landscape through a lens of data, decentralisation, and design thinking. Opportunities abound in data-driven dental or surgical franchises that standardise quality while expanding reach, in diagnostic supply chains that integrate local laboratories with digital logistics, and in health-insurance innovation that leverages technology to make coverage smarter, fairer, and more inclusive.
The next generation of healthcare investment will not be confined to massive buildings or legacy institutions. It will be modular, digital, and outcome-based; centred on solutions that improve health metrics, optimise patient experiences, and ensure measurable returns. The true innovators will be those who understand that healthcare’s future lies not in owning more hospitals, but in creating smarter ecosystems that connect prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and data into one seamless continuum of care.
What is the one first step you want every reader to take after finishing your book?
I want readers, whether clinicians, investors, or policymakers, to take one tangible action: Start a healthcare investment conversation. Identify a gap in your community and connect with a partner, financier, or innovator to fill it.
The book isn’t meant to end on the last page; it’s a springboard for collaboration. My ultimate goal is to see hundreds of small, sustainable, private-sector healthcare projects rise across Africa, built by those who once thought it was impossible.
