Nigeria’s RxAll Wins €100,000 in the Hello Tomorrow Challenge

RxAll, a Nigerian startup that tackles the global problem of counterfeit drugs, received €100,000 ($113,000) Global Challenge prize from BNP Paribas, Hello Tomorrow’s global partner in Paris. RxAll, among 11 others, was selected out of 4500 applications from 119 countries.

RxAll Digital built RxScanner, the world’s first drug authenticator, to test the quality of drugs using a portable nanoscanner and mobile apps. Their proprietary machine learning algorithm reads the scan from the nanoscanner, identifies the drug and assess quality, records the test result against a blockchain ledger and returns the quality report to the mobile app in 20 seconds.

In November 2018, three top African startups, RxAll, Tambua Intelligent Diagnostics and Passerine Aircraft were shortlisted to live-pitch head-to-head. RxAll eventually emerged the overall best startup, taking home $5000 equity free cash prize and a chance to represent Africa on the global stage to compete for the €100,000 grand prize. “It’s been a long journey, from nearly dying from a fake drug 15 years ago, to being with you here today,” said RxAll CEO Adebayo Alonge. “The solution that we have today means that nobody has to go through what I did.”

Worth $30 billion, the fake medication industry poses significant risks to patients throughout the world, especially in developing nations. In 2017, fake drugs were responsible for several thousands of deaths worldwide, and centralized regulatory oversight is often unable to keep up with the speed at which counterfeiters produce new drugs. RxAll’s platform, founded in 2017, solves this problem by providing real-time drug authentication.

Hello Tomorrow partners with top universities, research labs, accelerators and incubators around the globe to find entrepreneurs at a very early-stage who are developing new scientific and technological solutions. This year, the Global Challenge saw a record of 4,500 applications from 119 countries, indicating that the development of new technologies is more widespread than ever before.

The €100,000 prize recognized the 12 best early-stage startups in different categories from a list of 80 finalists. The startups are: Bound4Blue, Spain – Aeronautics; Insightness, Switzerland – Data & AI; RxAll, Nigeria – Digital Health; Coreshell, USA – Energy; Fauna Photonics, Denmark – Food, Agriculture & Environment; X-Therma Inc., USA – Global Health; Dust BioSolutions, Germany – Industrial Biotech; Echoring, Germany – Industry 4.0; Soundskrit, Canada – New Materials; NiveauUp, Taiwan – Mobility; Atomos, USA – New Space; and IIya Pharma, Sweden – Wellbeing. The prize is funded by BNP Paribas.

RxAll seeks to partner with health regulators like Nigeria’s National Agency for Food & Drug Administration & Control (NAFDAC) and United States Food and Drugs Administration (USFDA) and its equivalents in countries around the world.