The problem
Molecular testing across Africa leans on imported kits that are expensive, need cold chains, and are rarely designed around the continent’s highest-burden diseases — so patients go undiagnosed or pay out of reach.
Why it worked
Founded in 2023 by Salma Tammam, Reme-D develops and manufactures its own molecular diagnostic tests in Egypt, engineered to be affordable and temperature-resilient for underserved markets. Local production plus a focus on high-burden diseases (TB, HIV, hepatitis, HPV) won backing from impact and health investors betting that domestic manufacturing can close Africa’s testing gap.
How it works
Reme-D designs molecular assays from scratch for the conditions they will actually face — heat, patchy cold chains, low-infrastructure labs — then manufactures them at its Cairo facility. The kits are room-temperature stable, priced up to six times below imported alternatives, and already cover TB, HIV, hepatitis and HPV, with genetic-disease and cancer panels in development. Hospitals and labs buy the kits directly; 550,000+ tests have shipped across Egypt, Kenya and Sudan.
Pain points
African labs depend on imported kits built for Western cold-chain settings: expensive, temperature-fragile, and seldom prioritising the continent’s highest-burden diseases. The result is missed diagnoses and testing priced out of reach.
Business model
Straightforward B2B manufacturing: develop once, produce locally at low cost, and sell kits to hospitals and labs country by country — with each new assay and each new market compounding the catalogue.
Challenges
Each new assay and each new country means fresh regulatory clearance; scaling manufacturing without quality slips is capital-intensive; and global diagnostics incumbents contest every tender.
Funding
- Raised: $1.45M pre-Series A led by Anara Impact Capital with GIF and Africa Health Ventures (Disrupt Africa, July 2026).
- Valuation: MISSING.
Latest — July 2026
On 20–24 July 2026 TechMoran and Disrupt Africa reported that Reme-D raised a $1.45M pre-Series A round led by Anara Impact Capital, with participation from the Global Innovation Fund (GIF), Africa Health Ventures and others. The capital funds manufacturing-capacity expansion, regional footprint growth, and new tests — including genetic-disease and cancer panels — on top of its existing TB, HIV, hepatitis and HPV assays.