When South Africa realized it would not receive enough of the COVID-19 vaccines being developed in the U.S. and Europe, the country decided to develop and manufacture their own. But when it came time to test an early vaccine candidate in mice, there were too many bottlenecks that made it impossible to complete the work quickly enough at a domestic animal testing facility. As a result, the samples were exported to an overseas lab.

For Rose Hayeshi, this experience underscored the need to develop a preclinical testing ecosystem on the continent if Africa hopes to establish its own vaccine pipeline.

"We need to strengthen this space because we can't have samples and projects leaving the continent when the whole idea is to be able to develop our own vaccines and medicines completely within Africa," said Rose, a professor and the director of the Preclinical Drug Development Platform (PCDDP) at North-West University in South Africa.

In South Africa, says Rose, the main problem is not lack of expertise but that there hasn’t been enough investment in building out a robust ecosystem that supports preclinical testing needs, the stage when a product’s safety and toxicity is evaluated via lab and animal studies. For example, Rose’s animal research facility does not have an in-house pathology lab, which means the work must be outsourced. But the labs to which the pathology testing is sent specialize in human and livestock samples, not lab animals. Moreover, they do not have the accreditation - Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) - required by regulatory authorities for their data to be accepted.

"We have all the expertise to be able to do this. It's just not organized," said Rose.

Her solution is the Preclinical GLP Toxicology Hub, a collaborative network of all the local players needed for a strong preclinical ecosystem, which will include animal testing facilities, diagnostic labs, universities, contract research organizations, and vaccine developers. These partners would agree to follow and be trained in the GLP standards. As the network grows, the hope is that it will attract a sustainable pipeline of preclinical testing projects from both within the continent and overseas.

In September 2023, Rose got buy in from the different stakeholders. The group raised funds from North-West University, and by the end of 2026 it aims to have agreed upon training needs, business expectations, and an overarching quality management system. Rose, who is simultaneously continuing her other research on developing mouse models that are more representative of African populations, is aiming to test run the first project through the network in 2026.

The collaborative aspect of the hub reflects the reasons Rose loves working in preclinical studies in the first place, which involves partnerships across teams on diverse topics from cancer and tuberculosis to diabetes.

"I'm not the scientist who works alone in the lab looking for that one thing. I'm the scientist who works in a team to develop something," said Rose.