A promising discovery can take years to develop, millions to fund and still never become a product. What stands between good science and something people can actually use?
“A prototype is not a product, a paper is not a solution, and a grant is not a business.”
This blunt statement opened Dr. Kadryn Kadasia’s keynote at the seminar, “How ‘Good’ Science Becomes a Product (Or Doesn’t): Making Scientific Innovations Count”, held at Strathmore Business School on 17th July 2026.
The event was convened as a partnership between the Strathmore PRISM Centre and The RNA Salon Kenya with the KEMRI Centre for Virus Research (KEMRI-CVR), under the leadership of their patrons Dr. Doreen Lugano and Dr. Samoel Khamadi.
The RNA Salon Kenya is the home of RNA enthusiasts in Kenya, which hosts meetings aimed at bringing together the RNA community in Kenya and the East African region to encourage biotechnology entrepreneurship and innovation in the region. The RNA Salon is one out of 56 funded RNA Salons, globally supported by the RNA Society and Lexogen.
This seminar brought together researchers, entrepreneurs, technology-transfer specialists and biotechnology enthusiasts to explore what it takes to move scientific discoveries beyond the laboratory and towards useful, market-ready products.
In her keynote, Dr. Kadryn Kadasia, Founder and CEO of Misala Technologies Limited, described her transition from research to building a business around the commercialisation of African innovations. Her address was followed by a panel discussion, “Can Kenya Build a Globally Competitive Biotechnology Industry? From Research and Innovation to Local Manufacturing”, moderated by Dr. Lugano and featuring Dr. Kadasia, Dr. Ernest Wandera, Senior Research Scientist, Innovation and Technology Transfer Division, KEMRI, and Prof. Richard Oduor, General Manager, Research and Technology Transfer, Kenya BioVax Institute.
What followed was a wide-ranging conversation about the practical barriers between scientific discovery and commercialisation, and what Kenya needs to do to build a biotechnology industry capable of translating research into products that can reach the market.
The Ingredients Are Already There
Both the keynote and panel agreed that Kenya is well advanced towards building a thriving biotechnology sector. We already have a solid foundation of research institutions, universities and laboratories doing meaningful work. Emerging manufacturing infrastructure and investments in biotech platforms are adding to that capacity.
During the panel, Dr. Wandera cautioned against a do-all, be-all approach. Drawing from his experience in research, technology transfer and the development of health products, he urged researchers to link laboratory research to industry needs from the outset while using the capabilities of other institutions to move technologies forward.
A university researcher may be well placed to generate a discovery and develop it into a promising prototype. Another institution may have the expertise to refine it. A manufacturer may have the facilities and regulatory systems to turn it into a market-ready product. An investor may provide the capital needed at different stages of the journey.
The problem is that these capabilities do not always connect.
Prof. Oduor made a similar point, arguing that no single organisation needs to employ all the expertise required to develop and manufacture complex biotech products. Rather than asking how Kenya can build more capacity, the question is how existing capabilities can be brought together and utilised better.
From Prototype to the Manufacturing Pipeline
That is where the Kenya BioVax Institute could play an important role.
Prof. Oduor described BioVax’s mandate as manufacturing and commercialising human vaccines and specialised health products, supporting universities and research institutions to translate research into products, and working with industry where technologies fit its mandate. The organisation, therefore, provides a potential route from the laboratory into manufacturing.
One route is technology transfer. A researcher or institution with sufficiently mature technology can enter into an agreement with BioVax and move the technology into its development pipeline. The second route involves research and development for a promising technology that requires additional work before manufacturing.
The lesson for researchers is simple: think about where the technology needs to go next, rather than assuming you have to take it all the way yourself.
Technology transfer, in this sense, is not simply paperwork that happens after a research project ends. It is part of the pathway by which an innovation moves from one capability to another. For someone developing a biotechnology innovation, an important question is therefore: “Who needs to become involved after me?”
A Factory Is Not a Biotechnology Industry
Kenya’s emerging manufacturing capacity is important, but the panel made clear that a manufacturing facility alone will not create a biotechnology industry. A facility needs technologies to manufacture, researchers and engineers to develop them, regulatory and quality-control systems, reliable supply chains and, ultimately, markets.
The panel identified human capital, R&D, technology transfer, regulation, quality control, supply chains and market shaping as parts of the same ecosystem. These elements must develop alongside one another, rather than being built separately and joined together later.
This is especially important if Kenya wants to manufacture products for other countries. Local production is only the beginning towards global competitiveness; products must also meet the regulatory and quality standards expected in their intended markets.
The panel took a long-term view, with the next five to ten years offering an opportunity to strengthen these different parts of the ecosystem together.
When Good Science Still Fails
Dr. Kadasia’s rabies case study showed why the broader ecosystem matters.
Researchers had developed a technology that offered a potential solution to a practical problem in rabies treatment: instead of several injections administered at intervals, the same treatment could potentially be delivered through a single injection. They developed biodegradable microparticles, capable of releasing their contents at different times, so that a single shot replaced the regimen of 3-5 injections.
The science worked. But moving from laboratory production to something that could actually be manufactured at scale exposed problems with throughput, sterility, and cost. The microparticles were being produced manually, which worked at laboratory scale but was difficult to translate into the quantities required for commercial production.
The technology was ultimately shut down.
The lesson is an uncomfortable but important one: commercialisation failure does not necessarily mean scientific failure. A technology can work, solve a real problem and still fail because it cannot be manufactured efficiently, affordably or at scale.
For researchers, therefore, manufacturing must be considered early on. A prototype provides proof of concept. The next question is whether it can be done repeatedly, at scale and at a cost that makes sense.
Make the User Part of the Technology
The audience discussion introduced another piece of the puzzle: people do not live in laboratories.
Dr. Mathews Wakhungu, a social scientist, argued that Africa lacks solutions grounded in the realities of the people expected to use them. Culture, history, social systems and everyday practices can all influence whether a technology succeeds.
The example of the featherless chicken illustrated the point memorably. Removing feathers is a tedious part of poultry processing, so eliminating that step seems like an improvement. But preparing chicken also involves family, hospitality, familiar rituals and shared experiences. The technology might solve a processing problem while failing to fit the social context surrounding the product.
The example was humorous, but the lesson was serious: a technically superior product can fail because it does not make sense to its users. Vaccines, genetically modified products and other biotechnology innovations may be supported by strong scientific evidence, but public acceptance cannot be presumed. People make decisions within cultural, religious and social contexts. Product development, therefore, requires people who understand communication, public engagement and user behaviour alongside scientists and engineers.
Context Is Not an Afterthought
The importance of understanding user contexts also connected with Dr. Kadasia’s discussion of Misala Technologies and its work to understand women’s health priorities. The company initially used surveys, WhatsApp groups, in-person engagement and other forms of outreach for research questions, but after several months, the response remained limited.
Then the team tried a Facebook advertisement leading to an online landing page.
“We had 207,000 clicks in about four days,” Kadasia recalled.
The difference was not simply the platform. The subject matter was sensitive, and people appeared more comfortable engaging privately and anonymously. For Kadasia, this was part of a larger lesson about understanding customers.
“Context is not just designing with your customer, but it’s how do you talk to your customer? Where do you find your customer?”
And, she added, “I don’t think there is any product development without contextualisation.”
For researchers, understanding the user cannot be put off until the marketing stage. It must be part of product development itself. What problem does the product solve? What might prevent adoption? Can the user afford it? And, perhaps most importantly, do they actually want it?
Connect Before the Technology Is Finished
In the final phase, the audience also returned to a structural question: how can Kenya create stronger links between research institutions and commercialisation organisations? Many institutions are doing relevant work, but they are not sufficiently coordinated.
The proposed response was collaboration rather than duplication: partnerships between institutions, joint grants, shared expertise and relationships between researchers and commercialisation organisations, established before technologies reach their final stages. This matters, because waiting until a prototype is almost ready may mean discovering too late that the expertise, investment or manufacturing capacity needed for the next stage is impractical or unavailable.
The same uncertainty arises around investment. One student working on an AI- and genetics-related technology asked when researchers should approach investors while balancing intellectual-property protection, development costs, scale-up and investor confidence.
The discussion did not offer a single formula, but the question reinforced a broader point from the seminar: commercialisation should not be treated as the final step of research. Researchers need to understand the pathway early enough to know what will be required at each stage.
Building the Next Generation
If Kenya is serious about building a biotechnology industry over the next decade, the ecosystem cannot be designed only around today’s researchers.
The audience discussion considered how young people could be exposed to innovation earlier, including programmes in which high-school students develop products with mentors in research. The aim is not simply to encourage more students to study science, but to help them see what happens after the science: entrepreneurship, product development, companies and livelihoods.
One speaker argued that science needs to become more relatable to younger generations. The traditional image of the scientist as an academic working in isolation may not sufficiently inspire the next generation.
Research can be a career, but it can also be a business.
From Good Science to Something That Counts
The seminar began with a deceptively simple question: how does good science become a product? By the end, the answer was considerably more complicated.
Kenya already has many of the ingredients: researchers, universities, research institutions, laboratories, emerging manufacturing capacity and promising technologies. What remains is to connect them.
Researchers need pathways to manufacturers. Technologies need pathways to investment and further development. Manufacturers need regulation, quality systems, reliable supply chains and markets. All of these need to remain connected to the people who will ultimately use the products.
The challenge for Kenya, then, is not simply to produce more scientific discoveries. It is to build the chain that can carry those discoveries all the way.
That may ultimately be the measure of whether good science counts: not only whether a finding is published or a prototype works, but whether the innovation can survive the journey from laboratory to factory, from factory to market, and from market into the lives of the people it was meant to serve.
