Protein and peptide therapeutics — insulins, GLP-1s, monoclonal antibodies, hormone analogues, oncology biologics — have moved from a specialist corner of the drug industry to its commercial centre of gravity. The category now sits behind some of the largest individual products in the world, with GLP-1 receptor agonists alone reshaping the obesity and diabetes franchises of multiple top-twenty pharma names.

What makes the category investable from a research standpoint is its combination of large existing scale, double-digit growth, and a small, identifiable group of incumbents with both the manufacturing capability and the regulatory infrastructure to defend their position. Most of the value continues to accrue to a familiar set of names.

Bloomberg's second annual 25 African Startups to Watch, published this week, frames the continent's standout companies around a single idea — they are building solutions in environments where infrastructure or systems have failed to deliver. Healthcare runs through that thesis. Nigeria's 10mg Health, for instance, is going after a structural problem that has nothing to do with drug discovery and everything to do with how care is paid for in practice: upfront payment for treatment. Remedial Health, also on the list, is rebuilding pharmaceutical supply chains. These are not consumer-tech bets dressed up as health — they are infrastructure plays.

The funding mix matters as much as the companies. Nearly half of the funding raised by companies on this year's list came from African investors, a notable shift from the period when international venture capital dominated. As AI-related VC investment doubled to roughly USD 259 billion last year and three-quarters of it flowed to the United States, African founders have turned to domestic development-finance institutions, pension funds, and local VCs. Debt financing has nearly doubled.

The macro number underneath this is striking. The African health-tech market is projected to surpass USD 11 billion by 2025, growing at an annual rate of more than 23 per cent. That is a higher growth rate than almost any sub-segment of US or European healthcare, attached to a population of well over a billion people whose access to formal care remains structurally constrained.

For an equity research perspective, the implication is straightforward: the public-market opportunity here is still small and largely indirect (multinational pharma exposure, listed African banks financing healthcare, a handful of UK- and US-listed names with meaningful EM franchises). But the private-side companies being built today are precisely the kind that, if they scale, become tomorrow's listings — and the global majors will increasingly need to partner, acquire, or compete with them.

The map is not redrawing itself dramatically. It is shifting at the edges, where the structural problems are biggest and the capital is, slowly, becoming homegrown.