Ademola Osigbesan

Ademola Osigbesan is a doctoral researcher in Development Economics at SOAS University of London and a Hyundai Motor Group Scholar. He is affiliated with the SOAS Centre for Sustainable Structural Transformation (CSST), where his work focuses on industrial policy, pharmaceutical manufacturing, and structural transformation in Africa. 

His doctoral research examines how states can induce industrial upgrading in late-developing contexts, with a comparative focus on Nigeria and South Africa within a broader Pan-African perspective. The project explores how policy instruments, institutional arrangements, and firm-level strategies interact to shape domestic productive capabilities in pharmaceutical value chains, with particular attention to procurement/market dynamics, local content policies, regionalisation, and targeted financing as levers for both industrial development and equitable access to essential health technologies. 

He is particularly interested in understanding how African countries can overcome the persistent “industrial underdevelopment lock-in” of the pharmaceutical sector, as described by Geoffrey Banda (2023), and how industrial policy can be designed and coordinated to enable sustained capability development in the context of global value chain dynamics, regional/continental dynamics and domestic political-economic constraints. His research engages with contemporary debates on industrial policy in the 21st century, drawing on insights from scholars such as Ha-Joon Chang and Antonio Andreoni, and seeks to bridge the worlds of global health and development economics – an orientation shaped by his training as a pharmacist and over 18 years of professional experience in global health systems.  

Prior to his doctoral studies, Ademola held multiple roles at Unitaid (a hosted partnership of the WHO), where he led the design of the Regional Manufacturing for Equitable Access (RMEA) initiative and contributed to programmes aimed at improving the availability, affordability, and quality of health products in low- and middle-income countries. 

His work has included the design of innovative financing mechanisms, negotiation of access agreements with manufacturers, and operational oversight of large-scale procurement and supply programmes across disease areas including HIV, tuberculosis, maternal, neonatal and child health (MNCH), and malaria. He also contributed to national and continental policy platforms, including Nigeria’s Presidential Initiative on Unlocking Healthcare Value Chains (PVAC) and the African Medicines Regulatory Harmonization programme (AMRH).

Ademola’s research interests lie at the intersection of industrial policy and global health, including regional value chain development, health–industry linkages, and the governance of health technologies’ markets in Africa. He is particularly interested in advancing equitable access to essential health technologies and in the development of environmentally sustainable pharmaceutical manufacturing systems.