Pharma 4 Novation, Eighteen Months On: What a Four-Way Alliance Taught Us
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Pharma 4 Novation, Eighteen Months On: What a Four-Way Alliance Taught Us
Pharma 4 Novation launched on 1 February 2025. It is Tunisia’s first pre-incubation programme for pharmacists and pharmacy students. Four organisations built it together, and the first cohort engaged more than 15 projects. The second annual prize closed its applications on 5 April 2026.
HealthCare Innovation is the HealthTech cluster based in Monastir, Tunisia. This article looks at the alliance behind the programme rather than at the programme calendar.
The gap the programme was built for
Three gaps shaped the design. Tunisian pharmacy training carries little innovation content. Routes from an idea to a company are thin. Market access is fragmented.
A pharmacist who has an idea therefore has nowhere to take it. The idea does not fail on merit. It fails on the absence of a next step.
Four partners, four things none of the others could bring
The alliance is the interesting part. Each partner supplies one thing the others cannot.
| Partner | What it brings |
| HealthCare Innovation | Programme design, expert network, strategic coordination |
| Faculty of Pharmacy of Monastir | Academic partner and institutional host |
| Regional Council of Pharmacists | Professional oversight and field expertise |
| Opalia Recordati | Industry partner, access to real-world problems |
Attijari bank runs the funding sessions.
Look at the second column again. Remove any one line and the programme stops working. Without the faculty there is no room and no cohort. Without the professional council the profession does not recognise the certificate. Without the manufacturer the students invent problems instead of solving real ones. Without the bank the funding session is theory.
« We did not start by writing a programme. We started by asking who owns each thing a young pharmacist needs, then went to see them one by one. The design followed. » Dr Haroun Ouanes, Director, HealthCare Innovation
What the cohort actually goes through
The pathway has four stages: idea validation, business modelling, regulatory readiness, market access.
Training covers business design thinking and market studies. Webinars run from France and Tunisia. Rapid prototyping workshops address AI and software. Funding sessions run with the bank. Mentoring gives access to hospital and laboratory validation networks.
The first edition engaged more than 15 projects. They spanned AI-assisted diagnosis, emerging biotech solutions, and digital tools for pharmaceutical care.
Second edition, and the shift to a prize
The 2026 edition added a competitive layer. The second annual prize closed applications on 5 April 2026. The winning project receives 1,000 dinars. Four criteria decide: innovation, impact, maturity, feasibility.
The final pitch took place on 11 April 2026 at the Hilton Skanes in Monastir, during the 24th Pharmaceutical Days of the Centre. HCI and the programme team ran an Innovation Galaxy at the same venue. Dr Haroun Ouanes, Said Naija and Nermine Dammak led the sequence.
Placing the final inside a professional congress is deliberate. The winner pitches to pharmacists, not to a jury of programme staff. We use the same method across specialties, described in the Innovation Galaxy at the Mediterranean Geriatrics Forum
What is replicable, and what is not
Three lessons carry to other health professions.
- Start from ownership, not from content. The programme works because four owners each keep their part. A single organisation running all four roles would produce a weaker version.
- An industrial partner changes the exercise. Real problems come from a company with a real constraint. We examine that mechanism on its own in Open innovation in pharma
- A pre-incubator produces trained people more reliably than it produces companies. That is a fair result, provided the programme says so.
One limit is worth stating. Noncommunicable diseases cause around 86 percent of deaths in Tunisia . Those patients see a community pharmacist more often than a physician. The International Pharmaceutical Federation pushes the profession towards prevention and follow-up on exactly that ground. A pre-incubation programme reaches a few dozen pharmacists a year. Changing what the profession does at scale needs a different instrument.
Faculties and professional bodies that want to build a similar alliance can reach us through the Projects page. Pharmacists with a project can start with our Startup programmes
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What is this programme?
A: Pharma 4 Novation, Tunisia’s first pre-incubation scheme for pharmacists and pharmacy students, launched on 1 February 2025.
Q: Who created it?
A: HealthCare Innovation, the Faculty of Pharmacy of Monastir, the Regional Council of Pharmacists and Opalia Recordati. Attijari bank runs the funding sessions.
Q: What does a participant go through?
A: Four stages. Idea validation, business modelling, regulatory readiness, market access. Training, webinars, prototyping workshops, funding sessions and mentoring support each stage.
Q: How many projects took part in the first edition?
A: More than 15, across AI-assisted diagnosis, biotech and digital pharmaceutical care tools.
Q: What is the annual prize?
A: A competition attached to the programme. The second edition closed applications on 5 April 2026, with a prize of 1,000 dinars and a final pitch on 11 April 2026 in Monastir.
HCI Resources
Accelerating Innovation in HealthTech
Pharma & Medical Device Regulatory Services
Pharma 4 Novation project page
External Citations
International Pharmaceutical Federation – global pharmacy body
World Health Organization – Tunisia country data
Opalia Recordati – industry partner
Regional Council of Pharmacists of Tunisia
