Africa Healthcare Network emerges as dialysis care leader in East Africa
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Nikhil Pereira-Kamath, BA, executive chairperson and co-founder of Africa Healthcare Network, did not have plans to work in nephrology or medicine in general growing up.
His career started in economics and finance as he worked for Morgan Stanley and Berkshire Partners after attending Princeton University. However, health care was always part of Pereira-Kamath’s life. With a neonatologist as a mother and a nephrologist as a father, Pereira-Kamath was marching in World Kidney Day parades and attending the Transplant Olympics all throughout his childhood.
Then, when he was 13 years old, Pereira-Kamath’s family started a non-profit called Youth That Care in 1999 that helped establish dialysis centers across India.
“I think the reality is, I grew up exposed to the renal space and the global disparities in access,” Pereira-Kamath told Healio.
It wasn’t until he received a letter from a Rwandan entrepreneur living in Burundi pleading for help, that Pereira-Kamath considered following his parents’ footsteps. In the letter, the man explained that the country desperately needed dialysis support in East Africa.
“He wrote, ‘There’s children dying. There’s no dialysis in Burundi. Can you help?” Pereira-Kamath recalled. “It’s the kind of letter you can’t ignore.”
Although Pereira-Kamath did what he could from the U.S. and helped build the first dialysis unit in Burundi, he recognized the non-profit approach was not sustainable in sub-Saharan Africa. During his first year at Harvard Business School, Pereira-Kamath used the skills he learned to build the business model for Africa Healthcare Network (AHN). That summer, he visited Rwanda and realized two things – sub-Saharan Africa was in need of higher-quality kidney care at an affordable cost; and that to contribute to addressing this problem, he needed to take a break from his studies.
In 2015, Pereira-Kamath voluntary withdrew from Harvard and co-founded AHN with his partner, Lloyd Vincent, MBBS, MD, chief medical officer of AHN, launching what is now the largest provider of renal care in East Africa.
Africa Healthcare Network
In 2015, when AHN was launched, fewer than 100 patients requiring dialysis were receiving treatment in Rwanda. Pereira-Kamath estimated that of the regions AHN serves, nearly 135,000 patients requiring dialysis were not receiving care. Now, AHN has contributed to the care of about 5,000 patients.
Currently, AHN operates three dialysis centers in Rwanda, 17 centers in Tanzania and eight centers in Kenya. In Rwanda, AHN treats more than 50% of patients on dialysis and 25% of patients on dialysis in Tanzania and 5% of patients on dialysis in Kenya with its footprint doubling annually.
“We are focused on bringing access to patients,” Pereira-Kamath told Healio. “We have gone into regional areas where no other operator has been able to provide care, and then we build the dialysis centers within our partner hospitals. By doing that, we’ve been able to increase access so that patients who previously had to drive 13 hours for care or relocate their families can now travel less than 1 hour and get to a dialysis center.”
All of the clinics are led by independent local teams with a focus on gender equity and capacity building.
AHN has a close relationship with the International Society of Nephrology (ISN), which helps it to send doctors from East Africa abroad for fellowships and medical education. Pereira-Kamath was awarded the ISN’s Emerging Global Leaders Inaugural Cohort in 2021 for the work done in expanding care in East Africa.
In addition to providing dialysis, AHN has led campaigns to spread awareness about kidney disease and has created a registry of patients in East Africa with chronic kidney disease to better prevent and manage the disease progression.
Plans for expansion
AHN has recently expanded into Ghana and expects its first center by the end of 2022. Under the new stewardship of Matt Williams, CEO of AHN, the organization intends to bring kidney care to as many regions in Africa as possible.
“We have a real opportunity to provide world-class care across the continent, helping shape the entire industry and elevate clinical standards. While our growth must be sustainable, we’re intensely focused on access to care,” Williams told Healio.
Since its launch, AHN has proven to be profitable with “strong cash flow to fund future growth.” Several factors go into decisions by AHN to expand to new countries, including government support, strength of the health system and focus on noncommunicable disease management, and currency stability. Occasionally, AHN faces outside corruption as a main obstacle in its path to expansion.
“We need institutions globally to be more ethically motivated vs. profit motivated when it comes to working in more difficult environments where corruption is prevalent,” Pereira-Kamath said.
Plans for the future
“I think AHN should be the provider of choice for patients requiring renal care and not just dialysis, but the continuum of care from managing diabetic and hypertensive patients to CKD patients, to managing and delaying the progression of disease, renal replacement therapy and then eventually transplantation,” Pereira-Kamath told Healio. “We’re the only vertically integrated health care service provider in East Africa. So, we have our own warehouses and supply chain. We’ve registered all the products in the countries with their respective FDAs, so we have the ability to also improve access to drugs as medicines avoiding issues many operators face including stock outs, product expiration and cost efficiency.”
Having successfully established the largest kidney care and dialysis provider in East Africa, Pereira-Kamath has transitioned to executive chairperson of AHN with intent to complete his MBA at Harvard Business School after a 7-year hiatus.
In July, Williams stepped into the role as CEO of AHN after 20 years of health care experience, including spending the last 8 years at DaVita in senior leadership roles globally. Williams met Pereira-Kamath while considering investment opportunities for DaVita years ago, and while the company passed on AHN, Williams found himself inspired by the mission of AHN.
“Having worked in dialysis around the world, I was incredibly impressed by AHN’s strong foundation and the quality of the clinics that they were building,” Williams said. “When I think of AHN’s greatest accomplishments in the past 7 years, I think of the upskilling of local talent, the rapid growth across multiple countries, and the zero-tolerance approach on compliance and integrity issues. That has made AHN the clear leader in this region, and it will serve us well in the long run across Africa.”
References:
Africa Healthcare Network. http://www.africahealthcarenetwork.com/ Accessed: July 1 2022.
Africa Healthcare Network names Matt Williams as new CEO, as co-founder Nikhil Pereira transitions to executive chairman. https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2022/07/01/2472601/0/en/Africa-Healthcare-Network-names-Matt-Williams-as-new-CEO-as-Co-Founder-Nikhil-Pereira-Transitions-to-Executive-Chairman.html. Published: July 1, 2022. Accessed: July 1, 2022.
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