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Meeting highlights:
- Advancing Universal Access: Michael emphasised integrating Roche into national healthcare conversations, particularly around universal health access. His vision is to treat health as a national investment—akin to education—to drive societal and economic development.
- Innovation as a Cornerstone: He stressed that innovation should be recognised not as a cost but for its transformative societal and economic value. Innovation shifts the standard of care, reduces long-term burdens, and should be incentivised accordingly.
- Strategic Role of South Africa: South Africa is positioned as a gateway to Africa and a key contributor to Roche’s global value chain through clinical trials, unique demographic insights, and its role in regional healthcare evolution.
- Public-Private Partnerships & Primary Care: Highlighted Roche’s longstanding investment in health systems, especially through initiatives like Unjani Clinics, which aim to expand access and reduce late-stage diagnosis through stronger primary healthcare infrastructure.
- Call for Sustainable Healthcare Investment: Concluded with a call to action for countries to critically invest in sustainable healthcare systems, especially addressing the rising burden of non-communicable diseases without losing focus on communicable ones.
EF: Could you tell us about your goals and what you hope to achieve in this role?
MM: At Roche, our commitment to Universal Access to Healthcare is not just aspirational — it is operational. In South Africa, this means enabling earlier, more accurate diagnosis and delivering innovative treatments that are both affordable and scalable. It means moving beyond product delivery to system-wide partnerships. We are aligning our science, digital capabilities, and public-private collaborations to support the country’s vision of equitable health access.
Universal access is not just about availability — it’s about equity. About making sure that someone living in rural Limpopo has the same diagnostic chances as someone in Johannesburg. This is where Roche can lead.
We also need to shift the narrative: health is not a sunk cost — it’s a productivity driver. I recently met with a private equity investor in Côte d’Ivoire to explore the parallels between health and education as growth enablers. Investing in healthcare builds resilient economies, supports jobs, and boosts national productivity.
This is the rationale behind initiatives like the Roche Africa Press Day, where we brought together independent voices — from civil society, policy, and innovation — to interrogate what real progress on access looks like. We don’t just want to talk; we want to have a meaningful impact and also be able to measure it. That’s why we’re developing tools and forums to gather and share evidence of what works.
Looking ahead, Roche is ready to co-create practical, high-impact solutions with governments, investors, and communities. Because we believe that if we can back 'Health is Wealth' with data, we can unlock sustainable financing models and policy change. The future of Africa’s health is collaborative, and Roche intends to be a trusted partner in shaping it.
EF: In the context of South Africa, how do you ensure that the healthcare system recognises and rewards the value of innovation? And what are your key priorities in making that happen?
MM: In South Africa, recognising and rewarding the value of innovation means demonstrating that innovation is not a luxury — it’s a lever for system-wide efficiency and impact. At Roche, we believe innovation must be measured by the outcomes it delivers: earlier diagnosis, better survival, fewer hospital days, reduced caregiver burden. These are tangible metrics that speak to both the health and economic priorities of our partners.
There are many ways we make this real:
- Proving value through local pilots. One example is our haemophilia collaboration with clinicians, patient advocates, and the National Department of Health — a case where evidence and partnership enabled prioritised review and broader access to a new standard of care. It’s a blueprint for outcome-driven access.
- Embedding innovation into financing models. Access must be decoupled from unit cost and reimagined in terms of value across the full patient journey. We're exploring ways to support value-based procurement, pooled diagnostics models, and integrated care pathways that reward better outcomes, not just volumes.
- Building ecosystems that understand innovation. Through cross-sector campaigns, capacity building, and data partnerships, we're working to make innovation visible and valued, not just in academic terms, but in lives saved and systems strengthened.
Ultimately, for health innovation to be recognised and rewarded, it must solve real-world problems in ways that are scalable and sustainable. Roche is committed to co-creating that kind of innovation with South African stakeholders, because the only innovation that matters is the one that reaches people and transforms lives.
EF: What is the strategic importance of South Africa to Roche? How are you making the case to attract more resources to South Africa?
MM: South Africa is strategically important to Roche because it serves as a gateway to Africa and offers unique diversity in terms of market and knowledge. Diseases manifest differently in South Africa due to demographic variances, providing valuable insights for Roche's global research. These insights contribute to developing targeted treatments and strategies that can be applied globally.
We are well-positioned in South Africa with a strong therapeutic pipeline and clinical trials hub, which continually generates critical scientific knowledge. Our clinical trials hub conducts research in South Africa and extends into East Africa as well. In addition, we have unique programs, such as the African Genomics Program, which seeks to expand our understanding of the African genome, which is crucial for developing tailored healthcare solutions in the future. The diversity in South Africa and these scientific programs serve as a continued source of interest and focus for Roche.
South Africa's healthcare landscape, enriched by its diversity, makes it an appealing market for investment. We use successful outcomes from our clinical trials and public health initiatives to demonstrate South Africa's strategic importance and attract more resources. For example, the diversity in patient demographics provides a wealth of data that enhances our research capabilities and helps us fine-tune our treatments for various populations.
EF: Could you give us some details on Roche’s investments in South Africa through public-private partnerships and initiatives like the Unjani program and clinic expansion?
MM: Roche has a long-standing commitment to investing in South Africa through partnerships like the Unjani program and Phelophepa trains. These partnerships provide healthcare services to underserved areas. Unjani Clinics is a great example of this, as they are nurse-owned and operated primary healthcare clinics that aim to bring quality, affordable healthcare services to communities across South Africa. More recently, we've focused on strengthening primary healthcare, which is critical for early diagnosis and reducing disease burden. We see tremendous value in investing in primary healthcare because it is the first point of contact for patients and where education needs to begin to break stigma and promote early diagnoses, which is crucial to reducing the burden of disease. This also aligns well with the G20 health working group's focus on investing in primary healthcare for similar reasons to what I mentioned.
Through our “25 in 5” initiative with Unjani Clinics, Roche plans to establish 25 Unjani clinics over five years, significantly boosting primary healthcare access. It will also form approximately 10% of Unjani’s current network. This initiative is part of our strategy to enhance healthcare infrastructure and provide continuous medical support to remote and underserved communities. We have seen instances of a single clinic seeing about 1,000 patients per month, many of whom would otherwise have delayed medical care or would have simply gone without. This shows that these investments not only improve healthcare delivery but also have a profound socio-economic impact by enhancing community health and productivity, ultimately contributing to GDP growth.
EF: What are you most excited about at Roche right now?
MM: What excites me most about Roche is our portfolio's diversity and the innovation we bring, shifting the standard of care. Our commitment to innovation is demonstrated through groundbreaking treatments and technologies that have a profound impact on patients' lives. This impacts patients deeply, changing lives and transforming how families deal with health challenges. Seeing the real-world impact of our innovations, especially in the young adult and pediatric settings, is truly inspiring. You realize the difference we make when we introduce new innovative solutions, and it energizes you to fight harder every day.
Roche’s advancements in personalized medicine, for example, offer tailored treatments that significantly improve patient outcomes. With a promising pipeline ahead, I am excited about the significant changes Roche will bring to patients' lives. Collaborating with dedicated teams from diverse disciplines at Roche has been essential in driving these breakthroughs, and it’s inspiring to see the commitment and passion across the organization.
EF: Do you have a final message for our readers?
MM: Countries across Africa are at a pivotal crossroads: to shift from dependency to resilience, from reactive systems to preventive, data-driven care. That shift requires sustainable models — not just in financing, but in infrastructure, innovation, and partnerships.
At Roche, we’re committed to helping countries build health systems that are not only resilient to today’s challenges but also adaptive to tomorrow’s needs. This means investing equally in the fight against non-communicable diseases, which are rising rapidly, without losing ground on communicable disease control.
Ignoring this dual burden leads to higher costs, lost productivity, and lives cut short. But addressing it systemically — with data, innovation, and collaboration — can deliver real health equity.
We must move from episodic interventions to integrated solutions, from donor dependency to value-based investment. The future of healthcare in Africa isn’t about choosing between costs and outcomes — it’s about building a health economy that delivers both.
I believe the private sector, governments, and civil society have a shared responsibility — and a shared opportunity — to shape a future where every person has access to high-quality, sustainable healthcare. That’s the vision we’re building toward at Roche.
