Senegal-made sickle cell treatment raises hopes, reduces costs

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Mamadou Tahirou is 18 but looks more like a 12-year-old; his frame is frail from the ravages of sickle cell disease, which one Senegalese laboratory is hoping to attenuate with affordable drug production.

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The lab is one of the few in Africa producing generic hydroxyurea, the gold standard in sickle cell treatment, and the first ever in Senegal.

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Speaking to AFP from his family home near Dakar, Tahirou, eyes bulging and features marked by fatigue, described a life dictated by the hereditary disease, which affects nearly eight million people worldwide.

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Bone pain, severe anaemia, extreme fatigue and intense headaches: these symptoms frequently land him in the hospital, Tahirou said, while his 40-year-old mother, Rabiatou, watched helplessly nearby, her eyes swelling with tears.

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Fits of pain sometimes flare up while he is in class, disrupting his education and forcing him to miss school regularly.

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Africa accounts for nearly 80 per cent of all sickle cell disease cases.

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Yet the continent remains largely dependent on expensive medicines imported from Europe and the Americas, especially hydroxyurea, the treatment recommended by the World Health Organisation.

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The medication helps reduce painful crises, hospitalisations, the need for blood transfusions and death, according to the organisation.

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– Interest across West Africa –

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“I was three years old when I was diagnosed with sickle cell disease. I’ve been living with it ever since”, Tahirou told AFP, slumped in the family living room.

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Senegalese pharmaceutical firm Teranga Pharma is producing a local treatment it touts as more affordable and better suited to patients’ realities.

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In November 2025, the company launched Drepaf, available in 500 milligram doses for adults and 100 milligram doses for children, with the goal of “reducing the crisis threefold”.

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The generic drug offers hope for addressing the shortage of treatments and reducing reliance on more costly imported medication.

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And it is already garnering interest from several countries across the continent.

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The initiative is backed by 4 billion CFA ($7.1 million) in funding and comes at a time when access to imported treatments has become difficult.

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A study published in 2023 in Blood, a medical journal of the American Society of Hematology, reported that 78 percent of healthcare professionals surveyed across 13 French-speaking sub-Saharan African countries cited frequent disruption of supplies of hydroxyurea.

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The two versions of Drepaf are sold to pharmacies at a wholesale price of 3,000 and 1,500 CFA respectively.

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Hydrea and Siklos, hydroxyurea drugs already on the market, cost up to three times as much.

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Teranga Pharma CEO Mouhamadou Sow, himself a pharmacist, said that Drepaf’s paediatric version fulfils the critical need for a formula suitable for use from the age of nine months.

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He spoke to AFP from the company’s 9,000 square-metre (97,000 square-foot) factory in Mbao, on the outskirts of Dakar.

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Before Drepaf, if a person was unable to obtain or afford imported medicine, no local solution was available.

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“Doctors often had to treat the consequences of the disease rather than addressing its root cause, the red blood cells”, he said.

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Teranga Pharma is working with an Indian technical partner to ramp up production and supply other African nations.

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The laboratory says it is already working with Burkina Faso, Guinea and Ivory Coast, and that it has received requests from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon and Cameroon.

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– Step forward –

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The company aims to meet demand from the entire sub-Saharan continent by 2030, as part of a strategy to strengthen Africa’s pharmaceutical sovereignty.

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Drepaf represents a significant step forward in the care of children, said Magueye Ndiaye, president of the Senegalese Association for the Fight Against Sickle Cell Disease (ASD).

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“Until now, patients had to buy two boxes of 20 tablets. Now a single box of Drepaf, which contains 60, is enough and for the same price”, he said.

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Lala Dieng, whose 17-year-old son was diagnosed six years ago, noticed an improvement.

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“Doctors used to prescribe Hydrea 500 to alleviate his episodes. He recently switched to Drepaf 100, and I’ve noticed he has far fewer attacks”, she told AFP.

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Ndiaye said increased awareness about early screening is also helping, since babies who are treated early fare better, and pre-marital testing can even help couples decide whether they want to move forward and conceive together.

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As a genetic carrier of sickle cell disease, he has for 20 years now been sharing his experience and advocating for awareness.

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On World Sickle Cell Day on June 19, he brought together specialists to advocate for comprehensive care combining medication and psychosocial support to improve patients’ life expectancy.

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AFP

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