Anthony Ombewa
Kenyan biomedical entrepreneur Anthony Ombewa Jaccodul is betting that the next frontier of African healthcare will be built, tested, and shipped from Nairobi’s industrial parks. A trained medical laboratory scientist turned MBA-armed strategist, he founded Keton Consulting in 2018 to plug chronic gaps in the supply of in-vitro diagnostics and laboratory services. As CEO and chief of science, the 37-year-old oversees a portfolio that now distributes quality-assured reagents to more than 120 hospitals, runs mobile calibration teams that cut downtime in county labs, and pilots locally assembled point-of-care devices that slash turnaround times for tuberculosis and HIV screening.
Jaccodul’s dual fluency in bench science and balance sheets, honed at Kenyatta University, the University of Nairobi, and now sharpened by a doctorate in healthcare management, has also made him a sought-after voice in policy circles designing Kenya’s post-pandemic health-security plan. He chairs a task force drafting standards for home-grown diagnostic kits, mentors biotech start-ups at the Kenya National Innovation Agency, and is mapping a public–private consortium to bring genomic sequencing and precision-medicine trials to East Africa. With plans to break ground on a GMP-certified manufacturing plant by 2027, Jaccodul insists the continent can move from importing solutions to exporting them; turning Kenya into an anchor for affordable, cutting-edge diagnostics across the Global South.