Remarks by the Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Prof. Blade Nzimande on the occasion of the Launch of the Futurepharma Facility at the CSIR Campus, Pretoria, 7 October 2026
Programme director, Dr Thulani Dlamini, Chief Executive Officer of the CSIR;
His Excellency, President Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa, President of the Republic of South Africa;
Minister of Finance, Mr Enoch Gondongwana;
Minister of Health, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi;
Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition, Mr Parks Tau;
European Union Ambassador to South Africa, Mr Kristian Schmidt;
German Ambassador to South Africa, Mr Oliver Rentschler;
Director-General of the Department of Science, Technology and Innovation, Dr Mlungisi Cele;
Distinguished government representatives;
Chairperson and Members of the CSIR Board;
Representatives of industry, academia and the research community;
Representatives of our international and development partners;
Members of the media;
Ladies and gentlemen:
It is my singular honour and privilege to welcome you once again, Mr President, to the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, the CSIR.
The CSIR is one of our nation’s crown jewels.
It is South Africa’s premier innovation leader, providing cutting-edge, market-facing and socially responsive solutions in a remarkably wide range of domains - manufacturing, healthcare, energy, food production, water, transport, human settlements, defence and security. Few, if any institutions on the African continent match this breadth of capability and strategic reach.
Mr. President, we had the privilege of hosting you here in April last year to showcase CSIR broad capabilities and strategic role in the economy. Today’s launch of FuturePharma marks another pioneering step in healthcare innovation.
It responds directly to your call, Mr President, following the COVID-19 pandemic, for South Africa to strengthen its sovereign health-innovation capabilities and prepare for future health emergencies.
The pandemic and subsequent instabilities in the global economic and geopolitical environment exposed the risks facing our country in the security of production and supply of vital lifesaving goods and services such as anti-viral therapies, vaccines and personal protective equipment (PPE’s).
More broadly, it raised a central concern about the sovereign capacity of the State to protect our citizens from harm and to ensure their future prosperity. In response, you led a continental campaign to lay the foundations for a sovereign African healthcare economy.
Achieving this objective requires close collaboration among the National System of Innovation, industry, and the public and community health sectors. You captured the imperative clearly at the recent BRICS Leaders’ Summit when you stated: “We must strengthen medical sovereignty, vaccine development, genomic surveillance and diagnostic capabilities for the Global South.” FuturePharma is an integral part of that effort.
FuturePharma’s significance lies in both its scientific capability and its open-innovation model. It will bring together researchers, universities, start-ups, established companies and public institutions in an ecosystem able to rapidly move promising ideas from laboratory research to drug formulation, from clinical trials to regulatory approval, and from pilot production to commercial-scale manufacturing.
FuturePharma is a platform for process development, optimisation, analytical work and scale-up, to enable innovations mature until they are ready for transfer, further development and manufacture in the market place.
As a shared national platform, FuturePharma will give universities, research organisations, emerging enterprises, MSMEs and established companies access to world-class infrastructure and expertise that would be costly to establish independently.
It will also develop scarce skills, support technology transfer, stimulate enterprise growth and create new business opportunities for the domestic healthcare industry. I have also urged the CSIR to use this new platform to build regional and continental-wide industrial innovation partnerships for scaled-up solutions to common healthcare challenges facing the continent. This approach is crucial if we are to ramp up scale of production and supply, whilst bringing down costs and enabling Africans to provide African solutions.
FuturePharma advances the mission-led objectives of DSTI’s White Paper on Science, Technology and Innovation (2018) and the Decadal Plan for Science, Technology and Innovation (2022). It expands the reach of the National System of Innovation, supports industrialisation and helps ensure that knowledge is translated into technologies, products and services that improve people’s lives.
In conclusion, Mr President, your presence underscores Government’s commitment to placing science, technology and innovation at the centre of national development.
For this reason, we welcome you not only as Head of State, but also as a champion of a South Africa with the confidence and capability to solve its own challenges and contribute solutions to Africa and the world.
It is now my honour and privilege to invite the President of the Republic of South Africa, His Excellency President Cyril Matamela Ramaphosa, to deliver the keynote address.
Thank you.
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