Nigeria’s $2.39 billion annual medical tourism bill is coming under renewed scrutiny as Atunse Healthcare launches operations with an ambitious plan to bring advanced regenerative medicine, manufacturing and specialist expertise closer to patients at home.
The company, launched in Lagos on Friday, is positioning itself not simply as another healthcare provider, but as part of a broader attempt to reverse Nigeria’s long-standing dependence on foreign hospitals and imported medical technologies.
Atunse Healthcare is a partnership between KweHealth, LLC of the United States, which provides an established scientific and manufacturing platform, and Tri-State Healthcare System of Nigeria, which brings clinical delivery and institutional depth. The company is Nigerian-domiciled and Nigerian-based.
Kamar T. Adeleke, president and chairman of Atunse Healthcare, said the company was created to change the direction of medical care in Africa by building advanced healthcare capabilities locally.
“For a generation, the most advanced medicine of our age has been something Africans travel for. Atunse exists to change the direction of that journey. We begin in Lagos, but what we are building is not for Lagos alone,” Adeleke averred.
