Nhlanhla Sobantu Msomi
Dr Nhlanhla Msomi has had a varied career spanning R & D, academia, innovation management, policy work, corporate finance, and entrepreneurship. He was most recently Group CEO of MSQ Health, a company he co-founded with Safika Holdings. MSQ Health’s strategy was to build and consolidate a portfolio of medium sized companies through mergers and acquisitions based on an innovative integrated approach. At the time of his departure, three companies namely, Akacia Medical, Akacia Surgical and Clinisut had been acquired. Two internal Start-Ups had been developed in the areas of Diagnostics and Pharmaceuticals. In Diagnostics – several high-quality Agencies had been acquired from medium sized European and US companies.
After leaving academia in late 1999, he spent the next 16 years as a senior executive in several Organisations, both public and private entrepreneurial companies. In the Technology Innovation Agency, a public Innovation Fund, he played the role of interim / founding CEO as head done at the East Coast Biotechnology Regional Innovation Centre (LIFElab – a smaller R250m over 3 years Biotechnology Venture Fund). He also served on the inaugural Investment Committee of the Southern African Intellectual Property Fund (managed by Triumph Venture Capital).
On leaving the research and academic space, he co-founded a medical biotechnology company, BioPath Laboratories, and joined a network of molecular diagnostics laboratories with Autopath which had been set up with the liquidated assets of Pathnet. These were some of the first laboratories in the country to deploy core Molecular Diagnostics techniques, especially for HIV and other viral non serology diagnostics. The business model was based on major Pathology laboratories sub-contracting the molecular diagnostics part of the work, which at the time was not their competence.
He has previously served on the inaugural Investment Committee of the Swiss based Quantum Global Healthcare Fund for Africa ($400m). He was a major contributor to the Innovation Prize for Africa (IPA), including as a Judge and Validator. IPA was a groundbreaking Pan African Innovation prize, spanning the entire continent under the auspices of the Zurich based Africa Innovation Foundation. He serves on the Board of Governors of the Italy, Trieste headquartered International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB). He is the Chairman of the Boards of AfricaBio (a biotechnology industry association) and Next Biosciences, an innovative South African health biotechnology company. He was previously on the Board of Ilex SA (a medical diagnostics company), and currently serves on the Board of Separation Scientific (a South African Laboratory and Diagnostics services company). He chairs the Board of family-owned PeSo Holdings and PCK Distributors (KZN), as well as serving on the Board of the mining company, Rossmin.
