Edward Mbugua
Dr. Edward Mbugua Maina is a Kenyan pharmacist, health-economist, and hospital-systems builder who heads Pharmacy Services at Kenyatta University Teaching, Referral & Research Hospital (KUTRRH), one of East Africa’s newest quaternary centres. A graduate of the University of Nairobi, with a Bachelor of Pharmacy and an MSc in Health Economics & Policy, he began his career managing essential-medicines supply chains in Kiambu County, rising to Deputy County Pharmacist and steering the county’s first electronic stock-management system.
Recruited to KUTRRH in 2018, Dr. Maina led the task-force that operationalised the 600-bed facility’s pharmaceutical department: drafting SOPs, designing the sterile compounding unit, and digitising prescribing on an interoperable EMR. Today he oversees a team of 85 pharmacists and technicians who dispense more than 1.2 million medication orders annually while maintaining a stock-out rate below two per cent. He co-chairs the hospital’s Medicines & Therapeutics Committee, driving pharmaco-economic evaluations that have trimmed oncology drug costs by 18 per cent.
Beyond the ward, Dr. Maina advises the Ministry of Health on national pharmacovigilance guidelines and lectures part-time at KU’s School of Pharmacy. Through his Boys to Men mentorship initiative he visits secondary schools each term, guiding young men on career choices and mental wellness. His blend of clinical rigour, policy insight, and community service is helping shape a safer, more equitable medicines landscape in Kenya.