From lab to market: Strategies to nanotechnology commercialization in Africa

According to Dube and Ebrahim,4 South Africa is one of the leading countries in nanomedicine (especially drug delivery and medical diagnostics) research and product development on the African continent. [...]it could be used as a platform to facilitate the establishment of an African nanotechnology roadmap that will outline the short- and long-term technology development processes and goals or to provide guidance toward the issues of ethics, public engagement, and/or social debate on issues associated with safety and quality control. EGNC published 897 nanotechnology articles in ISI-indexed journals and 23 patents on nano-articles.7 African inventors need to overcome barriers associated with technology commercialization before they can see their nano-enabled products in the marketplace, such as standards, regulatory approvals, IP and global competition, scale-up, and quality control.