INTERVIEW PART ONE: Prof. Ogwang unfolds his rise in the pharmacology world and how COVIDEX transformed his role in scientific discoveries in Uganda
Prof. Patrick Engeu Ogwang’s quest to provide solutions through the invention of medicines started when he was in high school. In this interview, he tells his story.
He was thrust into the public eye during the peak of the deadly COVID-19 pandemic that has left 7m people dead globally.
In this interview with Charmar News editor Baz Waiswa, the good professor, who was nominated as a Business Trends Pacesetter by notable CEOs, Business Leaders, and entrepreneurs narrates his life’s journey that exposes him as one of the most important pharmacologists in the country and region at large
We will catch Prof. Ogwang, the maker of the famous COVIDEX and several other health products at the finale of the 4th Business Trendsetters Forum happening on 31st August 2023 at Sheraton Hotel Kampala where he will be one of the speakers under the theme MINDSET CHANGE ENABLING REINVENTION INN BUSINESS.
You have quite a resounding CV that is painted with outstanding achievements as a researcher and pharmacologist. How do you describe yourself?
I am a simple person who likes to create solutions. Whatever I do, the goal is to create a solution that solves a problem. Even outside medicine, my brain is always thinking about solutions.
The limitation only comes when I lack technical ability. But if I have the technical ability, like in engineering, I can as well make engineering products.
As a researcher and developer of medicines. What specifically inspired you to relentlessly pursue this path?
When I was in school I desired to become an electrical engineer. I wanted to work with Uganda Electricity Board because they used to drive big cars. The second reason I wanted to do electrical engineering is the desire to fix electrical appliances like fridges, radios, and TVs.
But in Senior Six, while I was at St Mary’s College Kisubi, a pharmacist inspired me to apply for pharmacy at Makerere University. When I applied for pharmacy, my goal was to go and start making medicine. I knew that pharmacy is about making medicine and medicine solves problems in society.
In Senior Five, I began making medicine for ulcers from banana peelings. Banana peelings are alkaline in nature. So, my reasoning was that these peelings are alkaline, and the stomach has acid that causes ulcers, I could convert these peelings to medicine to neutralize acids in the stomach.
But I didn’t have the technical ability. In Senior Five, you are not studying pharmacy. But I tried to create a solution that solves ulcers.
When I went to study pharmacy, I discovered that medicine comes from plants. Medicine may be in a capsule but it is extracted from plants. They are from nature. I asked myself why we importing medicine with all the medicinal plants around us. I wondered what the value of being a pharmacist was if I could not convert these plants into medicine.
Now, one of my cousins, a sickle cell person, used to suffer a lot. The mother came to me as a pharmacist. I had known that some of the plants have what we call the antisickling property that stops red blood from sickling. I had been testing these plants to treat sickle cell.
Surprisingly, it worked for him. He is still alive. He didn’t heal but he was feeling healthier. He became like a motivation for me. I started making different formulas for different diseases.
I had a neighbour who had diabetes for a long time. He came and asked me to make him a drug that eases diabetes. I made him a formula from a plant. After about six months, he stopped using the medicine I had made. He was ok. The demand from people came in. I started making for friends and relatives then the pharmacies in Wandegeya started asking for my medicine.
But the turning point was a child in Bugema called Muyanja who had sickle cell. He had a swollen stomach and yellow eyes. The grandmother told me that his kidney was spoilt. I asked for his medical papers.
They gave me papers from Mulago that indicated he had sickle cell. Then I told the grandmother that I had medicine for sickle cell; that I would bring it tomorrow. When I went back a week later after starting on my medicine, he had got better and returned to school.
I asked the grandfather to take me to the school where the child was because I couldn’t believe it. In one week, the yellow eyes and swollen stomach had disappeared. Mulago had not misdiagnosed him but because the parents were illiterate they thought the boy’s kidney had got spoilt.
He studied up to Senior Four. But one time I was in Ethiopia and he ran out of his medicine. I wasn’t there to make for him the medicine; he got an attack and died.
That incident made me think that I shouldn’t make medicine and keep it at home; that I should make it commercial. I had National Drug Authority (NDA) approve my medicines and I put them in pharmacies. That is how I started large-scale manufacturing and supply of my medicine through my company Jena Herbals Limited.
Uganda doesn’t have many success stories in the field of medicinal science, where could the problem be so that it can be addressed?
My thinking is that most Ugandans put money first. I think we should start from the point of solution provision. Solution provision means that you should do some background work. In the field of medicine, you can do research and confirm that what you want to give to people will work.
Most people don’t want to do research. They want to pick leaves in the village and give them to people. This cannot work. Most people don’t build a foundation for what they want to do because they want to get rich quickly.
You mention people being driven by money, how about education? Are people getting the right science education?
We are highly and well educated. The problem is the mindset. When I was joining the Wandegeya laboratory (at the health ministry), my friends who are pharmacists laughed at me and asked if I was going to be a witch doctor. You can see the mindset. They knew that if you are dealing with herbs, you are a witch doctor. And these are people with master’s degrees. So the mindset is wrong.
We all go to school to make money, now it is your choice to choose short or long-term gains. It took me fifteen years to reach where I am.
