We’re committed to ensuring healthcare supply chains work consistently, not occasionally, says Remedial Health CEO

Remedial Health, a leading force to reckon with in the health sector has since consolidated its leadership by developing tech-enabled solutions to make Africa’s pharmaceutical sector more efficient.
It provides a range of solutions, including digital procurement and PMR (patient medication records) platforms that make it easier for neighbourhood pharmacies and Proprietary Patent Medicine Vendors (PPMVs) to access affordable and authentic retail Medicines.
It also provides inventory finance, facility financing, payment solutions and inventory management solutions to make it easier for neighbourhood pharmacies and PPMVs to maximise sales and growth opportunities.
Starting with Nigeria, the firm delivers technology solutions that enable greater efficiency and profitability in Africa’s pharmaceutical sector and supporting the development of a tech-enabled, pharmacy-centred healthcare network across the continent. Beyond the present, Remedial Health has great plans to maintain its innovative leadership in the future. The CEO and co-founder of Remedial Health, Samuel Okwuada, revealed this in an interview with The Guardian.
Samuel Okwuada is a trained pharmacist, software engineer and a serial entrepreneur, who has co-founded multiple successful businesses in various sectors.
His latest venture is Remedial Health, which delivers a range of technology solutions that make it easier for healthcare providers to access affordable and genuine retail medicines, consumables and medical devices from manufacturers and distributors.
Below, Okwuada tells us more about the firm, his training and vision.

Beyond what we know about Remedial Health, do you have more to tell us about the company?
Yes. Remedial Health operates at the intersection of healthcare, supply chain management, technology and financial services, delivering the digital procurement infrastructure to power effective healthcare distribution for Africa’s 1.2 million pharmacies.
Starting in Nigeria, Remedial Health has built an effective operating system for pharmaceutical buyers and suppliers, working with more than 500 manufacturers and serving more than 7,000 hospitals, pharmacies and PPMVs across all 36 states of Nigeria, with regional hubs to enable a seamless experience across the country.

This is quite an achievement. As the co-founder and CEO, you must have been playing a leading role. Please, tell us about it.
My journey into health-tech has not been linear, as my earliest ambition was to become a pilot. This was driven by an interest in systems, precision, and how complex operations work.
This interest and the media recognition of renowned pharmaceutical entrepreneurs such as the founder of Orange Drugs later led me to study pharmacy, where I gained firsthand exposure to how medicines move from manufacturers to patients.
Working closely with community
pharmacies revealed a recurring pattern: Stock-outs, fragmented supply chains, limited working capital, and inefficient logistics were limiting access to essential medicines far more than clinical constraints.

How did you tackle the challenge?
To address these gaps, and using the knowledge I had from learning how to code since my secondary school days, I decided to combine my healthcare knowledge with technology and
operations. This systems-driven approach became the foundation for Remedial Health, which we launched in 2021. We began by helping pharmacies restock more predictably and gradually expanded into other data, and financing solutions for healthcare providers

Give us more details about your efforts so far.
Today, we have scaled nationwide, serving more than 14,000 healthcare providers across Nigeria, in partnerships with over 300 manufacturers and distributors, and have financed more than $40 million worth of medicines in just three years. This scale has made it easier for healthcare providers to access authentic, affordable medicines more efficiently, directly supporting better health outcomes for communities across the country.
Our growth and impact have attracted global recognition, including acknowledgement by TIME Magazine as one of the world’s top health-tech companies, as well as recognition by the Financial Times as one of Africa’s fastest-growing companies for our rapid growth and role in transforming healthcare supply chains in Africa.

Looking ahead, what is your vision for Remedial Health, and how do you see the company transforming access to quality medicines and healthcare across Nigeria?
Our long-term vision for Remedial Health is to become the foundational
infrastructure powering how medicines move across Nigeria – and eventually
across Africa.
Today, access to quality medicines is constrained less by demand and more by
distribution inefficiencies: fragmented procurement, limited financing, poor
inventory visibility, and inconsistent last-mile logistics. Over time, these
inefficiencies translate into higher prices, frequent stock-outs, and uneven quality assurance.

What is your long-term, overall vision?
Our ambition is to eliminate that friction. We are building a fully integrated supply chain platform that connects manufacturers directly to community pharmacies and patent medicine vendors, embeds working capital at the point of need, and uses data to optimise inventory planning and distribution. When procurement, financing, and logistics operate as one coordinated system, frontline providers can stock consistently, price competitively, and serve patients more reliably.

Tell us more about the problems in the health care sector
According to the WHO, an estimated 500,000 deaths each year in Africa are
linked to the counterfeit drug trade, with over 30 per cent of medicines in circulation believed to be counterfeit.
A major reason for this is a fragmented and unreliable supply chain. Many pharmacies and PPMVS operate with limited visibility into inventory, inconsistent access to verified suppliers, and capital. These issues not only weaken their businesses but directly impact patient outcomes. We thus set out to fix the system behind these problems. By digitising procurement and inventory management, the Remedial Health app provides real-time data, streamlined ordering from verified manufacturers and distributors, as well as flexible financing solutions. This gives healthcare providers better stock control, improved access to genuine medicines, and the capital needed to grow sustainably.

What is your broader mission and how are you going about it?
Our overall, broader mission remains to build the infrastructure for a more
efficient, data-driven, and sustainable healthcare ecosystem across Africa,
starting with the providers closest to patients.

Practically, how would one assess the impact Remedial Health has had on pharmacies, hospitals, and patients across your network?
At Remedial Health,we have improved how pharmacies, PPMVS, and hospitals
access and manage medicines across Nigeria, and we have done this by
providing real-time inventory tools, verified supplier access, and flexible
financing.
The Remedial Health app has helped reduce stock-outs, thus limiting exposure to counterfeit drugs, and enabling cash flow flexibility. We now serve over 14,000 healthcare providers nationwide, work with over 300 manufacturers and distributors, and have financed more than $40 million worth of medicines in three years.
For patients, our impact is clear as we have provided more reliable access to
genuine, affordable medicines.

Operating within Nigeria’s complex healthcare supply chain, what key strategic decisions have helped Remedial Health remain resilient,compliant, and trusted?
We have always prioritised compliance and credibility by partnering only with
verified manufacturers and distributors. This has been critical to building trust and ensuring access to genuine medicines.
We also invested early in technology, digitising procurement and inventory to
improve transparency and efficiency. Embedding financing into our model has
also helped address finance gaps, helping providers maintain consistent stock without cash flow limitations.
Finally, we scaled deliberately, focusing on operational strength and sustainable growth. That combination of compliance, technology, and financial discipline has kept Remedial Health resilient and trusted nationwide.

Apart from the inspiration you got from pharmaceutical entrepreneurs like Sir Tony Ezenna, founder of Orange Drugs, were there other persons or things that inspired you?
During my training and early career, I worked closely with community pharmacies and saw a consistent pattern: stock-outs, fragmented supply chains, limited working capital, and inefficient logistics were restricting access to essential medicines far more than clinical limitations. That insight led to the founding of Remedial Health. We are solving a coordination problem in healthcare distribution – bringing procurement, financing and logistics into one structured, technology-enabled system.
I believe healthcare supply chains must work consistently, not occasionally. As CEO, my focus is building resilient infrastructure that empowers frontline providers and ensures patients can access the medicines they need – reliably, affordably, and at scale.

As CEO, what are your lessons so far, and what advice would you give to leaders and individuals seeking impact-driven healthcare in Nigeria?
The most important lesson I’ve learned as a founder and CEO is that in healthcare, trust compounds faster than growth — and losing it is far more
expensive than scaling slowly.
In the early days, it’s tempting to optimise for speed: expansion, GMV, headline metrics. But healthcare is different. You are operating in a trust-sensitive ecosystem where pharmacists, suppliers, regulators, and patients depend on consistency. If your operations break down, the impact is not just commercial — it affects livelihoods and health outcomes.
The second lesson is that infrastructure businesses are built through operational discipline, not hype. Impact-driven healthcare companies in Nigeria must design for real-world constraints: inconsistent power supply, fragmented distribution networks, regulatory complexity, and working capital limitations. Strategy must reflect the terrain.
For leaders building healthcare businesses in Nigeria, I would offer three pieces of advice. Firstly, solve structural problems, not surface inefficiencies. Short-term patches rarely create lasting impact. Secondly, prioritise credibility. Relationships with pharmacists, manufacturers, and regulators are long-term assets — invest in them deliberately. Thirdly, take a long-term view. Healthcare transformation is not a sprint; it is sustained execution over years.
Ultimately, building in this space requires patience, systems thinking, and a deep commitment to earning and protecting trust at every stage of growth.