Paving the Silk Road: Sub-Saharan Africa’s Collaboration with China and India in Health Biotechnology

South-South collaboration has grown significantly over the past decade and can be an important tool to boost development and scientific capacity in Southern countries. This research aims to understand the role of China and India’s collaboration with sub-Saharan African countries’ in health biotechnology development on the African continent. I conducted a scientometric analysis, surveyed biotechnology firms, and interviewed researchers, entrepreneurs, and policy makers to identify the drivers, challenges, and impacts of South-South collaboration in health biotechnology and understand the factors that shape it. The main messages resulting from this study indicate that: China and India are active collaborators of sub-Saharan Africa in technology intensive fields, collaboration in traditional medicine is of high priority, drivers for collaboration with China and India are not uniform, and that shared health concerns are motivate and foster South-South collaboration between sub-Saharan Africa, China and India. This research study illustrates that sub-Saharan Africa can harness South-South collaboration to improve capacity, innovation potentials, and promote the development of health biotechnology solutions appropriate for the African context.MAS