China’s Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical (Fosun Pharma) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the World Bank’s private investment arm, are partnering to build a pharmaceuticals production facility and distribution hub in the West African country of Côte d’Ivoire.

Under the partnership, the IFC will provide subsidiaries of Fosun Pharma – Tridem Pharma and Guilin Pharm – with two loans totalling €50 million (US$53.5 million) to support the construction of a manufacturing facility near Abidjan to produce anti-malaria drugs and anti-bacterial medicines.

The pharmaceuticals factory will be Côte d’Ivoire’s largest and have a capacity of five billion tablets annually. The distribution hub will be located near the production facility.

The project, the IFC says, will improve access to quality, affordable life-saving medicines across West Africa, contributing to better health outcomes in a region that contends with heavy loads of infectious and other diseases. It will also facilitate medical and manufacturing knowledge transfer to Africa, supporting the long-term growth and strength of the wider region’s health sector.

Wu Yifang, Fosun Pharma’s chairman, adds: “Since 2006, the IFC has repeatedly provided financial and advisory support to our company, which is committed to ensuring the continuous accessibility and affordability of pharmaceutical products and improving the resilience of healthcare supply chains in the region.”