‘Africa is the most genetically diverse continent on the planet,’ remarks Chibale. ‘This is important because if you do a clinical trial in different regions of Africa and it works, there’s a good chance the medicine will work elsewhere.’

Originally from Zambia, Chibale has lived in Cape Town for nearly thirty years, working to increase the capacity for drug development and testing in Africa. ‘By the way, if you don’t know, every human is an African. Some just chose to settle in a cold, miserable place,’ he says with a laugh.

When did you first become interested in organic chemistry?

‘It started in high school in Zambia. We had this teacher who used to do really cool experiments where you could see the colour changes. That got me interested in chemistry. But it’s when I went to the University of Zambia as an undergraduate that I fell in love with organic chemistry.

‘I like the idea that you can look at a chemical structure, recognize the functionalities, and be able to modify properties of the molecule. It’s fascinating. But bottom line, I think when you fall in love with something, you can’t explain it. You just love it. Organic chemistry was something that resonated with me.’

How did you go from organic chemistry to drug discovery and development?

‘In a nutshell, the transition to drug discovery was about recognizing that science is not just for curiosity. Which of course it is. But science can and should be used to address societal problems, especially in places like Africa where we have such a huge disease burden.

‘When I moved to Cape Town, I asked myself, “how can I used my organic chemistry background to address problems that are prevalent on the African continent?” Africa currently makes up about 15% of the global population and accounts for around 20% of the disease burden globally. But only 3% of clinical trials happen here.

‘South Africa has, at least in many parts of Cape Town, very good infrastructure for clinical research. It also has a number of world-class academic institutions. But the chasm between the lab and the clinical science is something I identified.

‘So, in 2008, I took a sabbatical and went to Pfizer, the pharmaceutical company, in the UK and the University of Pennsylvania in the US. I took an entire year to learn what it takes to set up a drug discovery organization at the level of infrastructure, technology, and talent.

‘That is how I moved from organic chemistry to setting up this drug discovery organization that we now call H3D. When I started H3D in 2011, we only had five people in chemistry. Today we have 75 people in chemistry, biology, and pharmacology.’

You talked about using science to address societal problems. Why is this important?

‘I’m trying to confront what I like to call Afro pessimism. There are two sides to this Afro pessimism coin. One side is how people outside of the continent think about Africa. They see Africa through the eyes of the media, and it’s all the negative stuff. It’s poverty, disease, corruption, bad politics, you name it. Some of it is true, but not all of it. The media doesn’t highlight the good stuff.

‘On the other side of the coin is this perception that Africa cannot be a source of health innovation. It’s not just how people outside of Africa view it. Even Africans themselves don’t believe it.'

Why don’t they believe?

‘Because they haven’t seen. I don’t blame them. People want to see. They say, “show me what you’ve done.” For me, confronting this Afro pessimism is important. To be able to show that if we have the opportunities, the resources, and the partnerships that it’s possible to be a scientist and a successful entrepreneur. But you only change the perception by doing.’

How does your work at H3D fit into this?

‘It helps address brain drain. How can we keep talent on the African continent? Many African countries, after getting independence, invested a lot into education. They sent their nationals outside of the continent to get an education in Europe, the UK, North America. But those people have not been able to come back. There isn’t the infrastructure to attract them back, to nurture and retain them.

‘H3D helps combat this. Even though drug discovery doesn’t guarantee success, while the research and development is happening, people have jobs. We need to do more of this in Africa, to really articulate the business case for science. Yes, it’s about solving fundamental questions. But it can also be used to create jobs and infrastructure.’

Why did you focus on malaria initially?

‘In any kind of drug discovery, you have to think about the most significant unmet medical need. And malaria is one of the most significant diseases in Africa.

‘Drug discovery did not exist when I moved here from California. We had to build everything from scratch. The first opportunity we were given to do drug discovery was with the Medicines for Malaria Venture. Malaria, by the way, is not even a problem in South Africa. It’s a problem in other parts of Africa. But you have to start somewhere. When you’re building a track record, you can’t take on the world. You take it one step at a time. And I think that’s exactly what we’ve done. We’ve worked on malaria and tuberculosis, and we’re still working on them. And now we’ve recently started working on antimicrobial resistance.’

One of the achievements of H3D was the discovery of a new anti-malarial drug candidate called MMV048, which reached Phase II clinical trials. What was the significance of this achievement?

‘I like to say, “in drug discovery you have to kiss many frogs to meet the prince.” In the discovery process, you go through hundreds and hundreds of molecules searching for a drug, and most of them fail because of safety issues. Safety is the most important aspect of finding new drugs. That’s why it can be a long and expensive process.

‘MMV048 was the first time in the history of humanity that an African-led effort – and I emphasize African-led because this was an international team – took a molecule from screening to discovery and delivered it in the clinic for clinical trials.

‘Because what is drug discovery? If you are successful, it means you can deliver a molecule that is effective and safe to be tested in people. And we did that with MMV048. But this drug also has a novel mechanism of action which the malaria parasite has never seen before. So scientifically, it was a major breakthrough.’

Looking forward, where would you like to see drug discovery and development in Africa in the future?

‘It’s not enough to simply have H3D which is based in South Africa. We need regional centres of excellence and drug discovery. We have an initiative called Grand Challenges African Drug Discovery Accelerator network. It’s aimed at expanding the drug discovery ecosystem and community in Africa.

‘COVID-19 highlighted the importance of bolstering not just public health infrastructure and capacity but also local innovation in Africa. All it takes is one supply chain issue because the manufacturer of the vaccine wants to prioritize a particular country. In COVID-19, we saw people stocking up on vaccines and they weren’t available elsewhere. The same thing can happen with therapeutic drugs.

‘When we were working on MMV048, we needed five kilograms of it for Phase I studies. We couldn’t get it made anywhere in Africa. We had to go to India.

‘But imagine if more people were doing drug discovery in Africa. It would catalyse the manufacturing pipeline. People often forget about the manufacturing in drug discovery. It’s not just manufacturing a medicine that’s been approved by regulators. There is also manufacturing for clinical trials.

‘Historically, drug discovery has not been done in Africa. We have been beneficiaries of health innovations that come from outside of Africa, but we also need to contribute. We are trying to change the status quo so that we can help solve global health problems. They are not African problems. They are human problems.’