Legacy Rewards

A tenth of the global market for lenses used in modern cataract surgery is serviced by just two laboratories – one in Eritrea, the other in Nepal. Third World countries may seem an unlikely setting for state-of-the-art lens labs, but Medicine Mondiale founder Ray Avery says helping developing countries build successful enterprises around healthcare solutions is the crux of his independent development agency’s business model.

Avery established the two intraocular lens labs in the 1990s while working with the Fred Hollows Foundation. They now export to 80 countries. The Eritrean lab ranks as the country’s largest export company and makes an annual profit of US$1.5 million. Contrast that to Eritrea’s per capita GDP of $130. Avery says the labs have played a crucial role in collapsing the price of the lenses, making cataract surgery accessible to the “poorest of the poor”.

Medicine Mondiale recently established another facility in Nepal, this time for making nutritional products and again with an audience in the First and Third Worlds. Avery’s pre-digested protein formulations will combat dehydration and malnutrition at nominal expense. Elsewhere, wealthy athletes pay a premium for Proteinforte, pitched in the lucrative sport and health foods market.

“Unless what you create is earning foreign money, generating export dollars, you’re just another micro-finance organisation and the wealth you are creating is boosting the income of an individual. If we’re serious about creating a more equitable world we have to work to upscale the business initiatives of these countries.”

Avery is motivated by the idea that “one man can change the world”. Four billion people live on less than $2 a day – the combined buying power is the bit worth concentrating on. However you look at it, he says, increasing incomes is a sound foundation.

He has found others who agree. Trade Me founder-turned-angel investor Sam Morgan has helped fund an inexpensive life-saving gadget that enables simple control of the drug flow through IV drips. Others, including designers, manufacturers and patent attorneys, have donated expertise and time.

“The other day I was talking to a room of important businesspeople and trying to explain that eventually they all will be a ‘used to be’ ... But if you get involved with something like this, you are part of something ongoing.”