MedSource Winding Down of Operations

MedSource is Kenya’s first private commercial group purchasing organization for quality-assured medicines and health supplies. An independent subsidiary of Management Sciences for Health (MSH) launched in 2018, MedSource helps its members—pharmacies, hospitals, clinical laboratories, and other health care providers—realize savings and efficiencies by aggregating purchasing volume and using that leverage to negotiate discounts with manufacturers, wholesalers, distributors, and other vendors. MedSource gives big-player buying power to private small-and medium-sized primary health care businesses.

We are proud of the work that we have done to improve access, affordability, and quality to the health care marketplace. Serving more than half of Kenya, MedSource’s nearly 850 members have found a pathway to better quality at better prices and are on a journey to more successful and sustainable business practices. The impact on affordability of essential medicines has been palpable: the price of antimalarials was reduced by 18% and both antibiotics and cardiovascular medicine prices were reduced by 15%.

 We are also proud of being part of a community of Kenyans and Kenyan organizations committed to the value of digitalization to improve cost, quality, and care in the health care system.

Throughout our seven-year commitment, MedSource has continuously refined its approach in response to marketplace feedback. However, amidst the current economic landscape, another strategic shift is imperative. As a mission-oriented non-profit, at MSH, we meticulously monitor our investments to maximize community impact. Regrettably, allocating further resources to MedSource at this juncture would not align with this objective. Consequently, MSH has made the decision to wind down MedSource operations.

We hope to document and publicize our learnings at a later juncture and look forward to seeing this initiative taken up again, either by MSH or another entity.