Mueni Mutinga – Riverside, California
Dr. Mueni Mutinga is a dentist who owns a practice in Riverside, California. A graduate of Loma Linda University where she received her doctorate degree in dental surgery, she also earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology.
Dr. Mutinga is an adjunct faculty member at Loma Linda University School of Dentistry. She continues to receive post-graduate training in cosmetic dentistry. This allows her to create beautiful smiles for her patients while implementing the latest technology.
Dr. Mutinga strives to establish long-term relationships with her patients based on trust, communication, and gentle care.
Source: Today Dental
Nzisa Mutinga-Barnes – Columbia, South Carolina
Nzisa Mutinga-Barnes is a nephrologist in Columbia, South Carolina. Born to an American mother and Kenyan father, she went to school in Kenya before coming to the United States to get her degree in medicine from the University of Alabama.
She is currently a nephrologist with Columbia Nephrology Associates.
Angela Wandera – Eden Prairie, Minnesota
Dr. Wandera completed her dental and specialty education at the Universities of Nairobi and Minnesota and has served as a faculty member at the Universities of Missouri, Michigan and Minnesota. She has experience in both institutional and private practice.
Dr. Angela Wandera
She has presented at continuing education courses both locally and nationally, has authored multiple articles and is currently on the Editorial Board for Pediatric Dentistry. She maintains membership in the Minnesota and American Dental Associations, the American and Minnesota Academies of Pediatric Dentistry and the American Association of Orthodontists.
She has served in various Councils with the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry and is a Diplomate of The American Board of Pediatric Dentistry or is “Board Certified in Pediatric Dentistry”.
Navin Engineer, London, United Kingdom
Navin Engineer
When Navin Engineer arrived in Britain in 1969, he was driven by a burning desire to work for himself, in contrast to his father, who worked for years in the Kenyan civil service. ‘I believed in working hard and wanted to be rewarded for what I did,’ he says. He founded Chemidex with his wife Varsha. ‘None of this would have been possible without her,’ he says. ‘She gave 100% support in running the shops and the pharmacies. You need a rock.’
They have two children, both of whom are studying medicine. Having sold its pharmacies, Chemidex is now a wholesaler of both branded and generic medicines, but not parallel-imported drugs. Engineer is in no doubt that growth in cheaper generic medicines has contributed to a more efficient healthcare market. ‘Wearing my hat when I am selling brands, I would say we need new molecules and new discoveries and we need to pump money into that,’ he says. ‘Fifty years ago, people were dying of tuberculosis and high cholesterol and we couldn’t transplant organs or, if we could, we didn’t have the drugs to make sure that rejection didn’t take place. But now we have drugs to do all these things and because of the budgetary pressures on the NHS, it has to look to save money.’
Navin Engineer’s story demonstrates the possibilities, even though his firm, Chemidex, is one of the few generic specialists that has not also expanded into parallel importing. He was sent to London in 1969 at the age of 16 to live with his aunt, with £75 in his pocket. He worked in the Wimpy burger restaurant on Oxford Street in the evening and at weekends to support himself through sixth form and then the London School of Pharmacy.
On graduation, he took a job as a pharmacist with Boots. Already feeling the company was ‘a little bit like the civil service’, he was infuriated by the demand of a visiting area manager for a cup of tea at a moment when he was busy dispensing prescriptions. ‘I made the cup of tea, but that night I went home and wrote a letter of resignation,’ says Engineer. ‘It was the best thing that ever happened to me.’
He set up his own pharmacy in Chertsey, Surrey, on the site of a former grocery store. He opened long hours, including Sundays, on the principle that ‘your body doesn’t decide to be ill when the shops are open’.
PillsHe expanded the business, even buying a former Boots store in Addlestone, near Weybridge. By 1999, he had 14 pharmacies and their value had increased after the government acted to prevent a free-for-all in the market by restricting the grant of new pharmacy licences. German group GEHE – one of three companies trying to consolidate the pharmacy market – came knocking. ‘They kept on increasing their offer until it was irresistible,’ he says. The final price was a cool £12 million.
Engineer chose to invest much of the proceeds in his much smaller wholesale business. He bought some small branded pharmaceuticals from big pharma companies, typically medicines turning over £2 million or less, and made instant savings by switching production to established factories in eastern Europe and the Far East.
Then he moved into generics, an area that requires specialist knowledge and a willingness to take calculated risks. Engineer reckons it costs between £200,000 and £250,000 and takes two or three years to develop a generic pharmaceutical. The first step is to identify the patent that is about to expire and then to make sure you do not infringe it as you develop a copy-cat version.
A patent lawyer alone can cost £50,000. ‘You have to make sure you are on firm ground,’ he says. ‘I would rather spend £50,000 doing that than get a writ from somebody saying: “You have infringed my patent”, and then you could get into a legal battle that could cost £500,000 or £1 million.’
There is also product insurance to be paid, plus the costs of proving the efficacy of the drug. ‘If it doesn’t work in the biostudy, then you have to start again,’ he says. ‘The regulatory authorities don’t have half-measures. The regulations are so controlled that generic products are of a very high standard.’
The hurdles may be high, but Chemidex now has 42 generics. They include treatments for gout and depression, an antibiotic for anthrax and even a generic version of the famous Prozac. They all contributed to profits last year of £9 million – not bad for a wholesaling business that was originally subordinate to Engineer’s retail pharmacies.
When Navin Engineer, now 51, arrived in Britain in 1969, he was driven by a burning desire to work for himself, in contrast to his father, who worked for years in the Kenyan civil service. ‘I believed in working hard and wanted to be rewarded for what I did,’ he says. He founded Chemidex with his wife Varsha. ‘None of this would have been possible without her,’ he says. ‘She gave 100% support in running the shops and the pharmacies. You need a rock.’
They have two children, both of whom are studying medicine. Having sold its pharmacies, Chemidex is now a wholesaler of both branded and generic medicines, but not parallel-imported drugs. Engineer is in no doubt that growth in cheaper generic medicines has contributed to a more efficient healthcare market. ‘Wearing my hat when I am selling brands, I would say we need new molecules and new discoveries and we need to pump money into that,’ he says. ‘Fifty years ago, people were dying of tuberculosis and high cholesterol and we couldn’t transplant organs or, if we could, we didn’t have the drugs to make sure that rejection didn’t take place. But now we have drugs to do all these things and because of the budgetary pressures on the NHS, it has to look to save money.’
BHARAT SHAH, Watford, United Kingdom
Bharat Shah and wife, Jayoti
Sigma Pharmaceuticals’ Bharat Shah says the support of his family has helped him build Sigma from a single pharmacy in Watford to a company concentrated on wholesaling that made profits of £4.8 million on turnover of £190 million. Two of his brothers work in the business – Manish, an accountant, and Kamal, who works in operations. And now his son Halul runs retail pharmacies. ‘It’s an Asian way of working,’ says Shah. ‘We are all focused on what we are doing and we are working for succession. It’s all in the family.
We are not growing the business for an exit route.’ Of the success of so many Kenyan Asians in the same field, he says: ‘We all had one thing in common – we came to a country where we had to make it and our families supported us. My wife didn’t mind me working 14 hours a day on the business and not being home to read the children bedtime stories. But we had, and still have, a good relationship. We have no regrets.’
Sigma Pharmaceuticals provides medicines and medical supplies to the UK’s pharmacies and hospitals. The company offers more than 4,000 product lines — focusing on generic and over-the-counter drugs — and serves more than 5,000 clients. Much of Sigma Pharmaceuticals’ business involves parallel importing; the company buys generic medications abroad and repackages them for sale in the UK. The company started when Shah, 58, a Kenyan Asian, began supplying pharmacies and hospitals from his local chemist’s shop. The business is worth about £70m and the family has additional wealth.
Dr. Miriam Were Receives Hideyo Noguchi Award
Dr. Miriam Were will be given the Hideyo Noguchi award at a ceremony in Japan next week during the fourth Tokyo International Conference on Africa Development (TICAD IV). She was formerly Kenya’s National Aids Control Council chairperson, and was instrumental in watching the Kenya’s AIDS prevalence fall to the current low of 4 percent from a high of 11 percent in 2000.
The Hideyo Noguchi Africa prize honors individuals and organizations with outstanding achievements in the field of medical research and medical services in combating infectious and other diseases in Africa.
Prof Were is a medical doctor and former United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) director in Ethiopia. She has also served as the World Health Organization (WHO) representative and chief of mission in Ethiopia.
Akbar Waljee, Ann Arbor, Michigan
Akbar Waljee was born and raised Nairobi, Kenya. He spent many years volunteering with the Kenya Red Cross, and at Kenyatta Hospital where his interest in medicine and gastrointestinal diseases flourished. Akbar graduated from Emory University with Bachelor of Science in Biology and his Doctor of Medicine. He completed his internal medicine residency training at the University of Michigan, and spent a year as faculty. He is now a Gastroenterology fellow at the University of Michigan, with an interest in inflammatory bowel disease. During his fellowship, he was awarded his Masters of Science in Health and Health Services Research, and plans to pursue a career in academic and clinical medicine.
Source: RJW Foundation
Awori J. Hayanga, Superior Township, Michigan
Awori J. Hayanga is a surgeon training in the United States. Born and raised in Kenya, he left Africa to pursue a medical education. After graduating medical school in Europe, he moved to the United States to begin his surgical training at the Johns Hopkins Hospital before transferring to the University of Michigan for further surgical training. Acutely concerned by the relative isolation facing Kenyan surgery residents regarding access to and use of the evidence base, he is committed to an earnest attempt at bridging the technological and practice divide using the world’s most valuable resource – people. In this case, academic professionals from both sides who are willing to network and practice together, and in so doing, perpetuate the very essence of a global academic teaching institution without prejudice or restriction. Dr Hayanga’s concern for environmental issues finds an outlet as he remains an active member of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Environmental Studies. In 2007, Dr Hayanga was awarded the prestigious Hopkins Sommer Scholarship by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health for a Masters in Public Health with a focus on Policy and Outcomes. He was also named the recipient of the 2007 Resident Leadership Award by the American College of Surgeons.
Dr. Hayanga has also been awarded the 2007 World Health Organization/ World Alliance for Patient Safety Scholarship and will continue his graduate training as a WHO Scholar.
Awori is also a blogmaster for AccessSurgery.
Source: RJW Foundation
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