Nigerian healthtech startup joins prestigious entrepreneur organisation 

The founder of 54gene, a Nigeria-based healthtech startup, Dr. Abasi Ene-Obong has been selected as an Endeavor Entrepreneur. 

As a member of this organisation, 54gene will be provided support to upscale their business and help drive economic growth in Nigeria

Functioning as one of the leading global entrepreneur support organisations, Endeavor Entrepreneur Nigeria selects, mentors, and accelerates the best high-impact entrepreneurs in the country.

Eloho Omame, Managing Director & CEO of Endeavor in Nigeria comments on the addition of 54gene to the organisation. 

“54gene is a critical part of the continent’s push to equalize access to precision medicine for millions of Africans. The rapid pace at which the company has scaled over the past year is a testament to Dr. Abasi Ene-Obong’s leadership, his drive, and his talented team. He is an inspiration to other high-impact entrepreneurs in Nigeria and we are thrilled to welcome him into the Endeavor network.” 

54gene joins 10 other Endeavor Entrepreneur-led companies in Nigeria, and over 1,300 in Endeavor’s 37 markets across Africa, Latin America, Asia, Europe, and North America. 

Dr. Abasi Ene-Obong, CEO and Founder of 54gene comments on the prestigious achievement.

 “It is an absolute honour to be selected as an Endeavor entrepreneur. We started 54gene to significantly improve the inclusion of African populations in global genomics research and I am glad to see our work is being recognised. Our mission is to continue driving innovation and change in research and I look forward to the opportunities that arise as a result of being supported by the global Endeavor network in expanding 54gene’s impact globally.”

Dr. Abasi Ene-Obong was successfully selected as part of a cohort of 9 entrepreneurs from 6 markets. With the recent addition of 54gene, Endeavor Nigeria now supports 17 entrepreneurs who lead 11 scale-up stage companies in Nigeria, spanning life sciences, fintech, renewable energy, entertainment, logistics, and retail. 

54gene 

Founded in 2019, 54gene is a healthtech startup that aims to improve drug discovery by researching the genetically diverse African population. This is done through research, advanced molecular diagnostics, and clinical programs. 

With its most recent partnership to create a prestigious genomics facility in Nigeria, 54gene is growing in strides as a renowned healthtech startup in Africa.

With less than 3% of the continent’s genomic data available for research purposes, 54gene has created a solution to gather this important data to use it for medical discoveries.

 At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria, 54gene raised funds to increase the country’s testing capacity and launched mobile laboratories across five

Nigerian states. The company has raised $21-million in investment and also launched the African Centre for Translational Genomics (ACTG) to fund the study of Non-Communicable Diseases in 100,000 Nigerians.

 In September, the company announced a partnership with Illumina to establish a world-class genomics facility in Lagos, Nigeria, which will help expand its sequencing-based research and molecular diagnostics offering (see this story)

Read more: Nigerian healthtech startup to create prestigious genomics facility in Nigeria