Johnson & Johnson opens East Africa office in Nairobi

Johnson & Johnson, the multi-national manufacturer of personal hygiene, vaccines, diagnostic, as well as pharmaceutical products, has opened a regional office in Nairobi, Kenya.

The move is aimed at giving the multinational more control over the distribution its products in the region as opposed to entirely relying on third parties.

“We are building a talented team that will address many of the most prominent health issues of concern to Kenyans. We will prioritise on Multidrug Resistant TB, chronic diseases such as cancer even as we focus on HIV, maternal, child and newborn health,” said Mr Vittorio Sereni, the Kenya Office county manager.

Head of the Global Public Health at Johnson & Johnson Jaak Peeters said the company is keen to tap the potential business opportunity in Kenya’s capital.

“We’re focused on innovations. Kenya has the capability, the entrepreneurs, scientists and a government that welcomes ideas in tackling emerging concerns such as non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, mental health, and hypertension among others.”

The Nairobi office is the third one on the continent after opening of similar ones in Accra, Ghana, earlier in the week. The other Johnson office is in South Africa.

The company has worked on various projects in Africa for nearly 86 years.

Such projects in Kenya include training of health care workers in low resource settings to swiftly intervene when newborns have breathing difficulties in turn averting death.

Johnson & Johnson also partners with Amref Africa as well as the Aga Khan Development Network to train doctors and nurses/midwifes respectively.

Further, Mr Peeters says they have developed an Ebola Vaccine with nearly two million doses available for emergency use in the event of an outbreak of the haemorrhagic fever.