Fidson Healthcare Plc has been selected to develop and manufacture a generic version of Roche’s influenza antiviral drug, baloxavir marboxil, through a licensing arrangement backed by the Medicines Patent Pool. The deal places founder Fidelis Ayebae’s company among a small group of global manufacturers chosen for the programme.
Ayebae’s path to this point started with an unlikely combination. He earned a Higher National Diploma in Civil Engineering in 1976, later adding an Advanced Diploma in Business Administration from the University of Lagos, before spending years at Citibank ahead of founding Fidson in 1995. This grounding shows in what Fidson has built since.
The company became the first West African manufacturer of indigenous antiretroviral drugs for HIV, alongside proton pump inhibitors and complex infusion formats, the kind of technical record that makes a firm credible for an international deal like this one.
Fidson also became the first Nigerian pharmaceutical company to cross N100 billion in revenue, eventually reaching past N119 billion. Revenue of that size does not arrive from one product but buds off years of reinvestment in plants, regulatory systems, and staff.
Global partnerships followed the same pattern. Fidson worked with Japan’s Ohara Pharmaceutical Company on an oncology expansion and with three Chinese consortiums on an HIV-focused manufacturing hub in the Lekki Free Trade Zone, each deal adding to the track record regulators now rely on.
Under the Roche arrangement, Fidson will receive technical information and reference materials needed to pursue regulatory approval, with the aim of making the drug available in eligible markets at a lower cost.
Recognition has tracked the same climb. In 2025, Ayebae became the youngest person to receive the Nigeria Academy of Pharmacy’s Lifetime Achievement Award, nine years after becoming the first non-pharmacist admitted into the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria’s Hall of Honorary Membership.