A Letter About Joe Ritchie & Paul Farmer

May 15, 2022

Dear Friends and Members of the Akagera Medicines community,

I spent the weekend in rural Illinois at the memorial service of one of our closest friends and investors, Joe Ritchie. Joe was an epic investor, an adventurer, and a romantic. He was an observant and eloquent catholic. He had ten children and 35 grandchildren. And he treated everyone whom he met like the presidents of nations (Kenya, Rwanda, Malawi, Guatemala, Afghanistan, Congo) whom he advised. He passed away of COVID-related symptoms in February 2022. We miss Joe’s counsel every day. If Joe believed in you, you felt like you could do anything. We at Akagera Medicines will move ahead as if he were still with us: anticipating his advice, living up to his ethics and compassion, and always asking - what would Joe do?

Please see Joe’s biography https://www.akageramedicines.com/new-index, and Wikipedia page, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Ritchie . You might not even believe what you are reading.

On the same day that Joe passed, we lost a founding member of our board of directors, Dr. Paul Farmer. Paul was a University Professor at Harvard Medical School. He was an inspiration for our company without which it would not exist. His untimely passing in northern Rwanda, at the new medical school, which he co-founded, was devastating to the world and especially to the people of Haiti, Peru and Rwanda. Those of us who felt his passion and benefitted from his trusted global network and intellectual contributions (“global health equity”, “accompaniment”), regard his self-effacement, humor and character as the standards by which we should all live.

Paul’s bio is at https://www.akageramedicines.com/board-of-directors and his Wikipedia page is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Farmer.

Joe wasn’t the typical trader and investor. Paul wasn’t just a thought leader. They wanted everyone whom they knew and touched to do better. They represented and inspired the moral purpose of Akagera Medicines:  first, to create medicines that lead to a world free of tuberculosis (TB), humankind’s greatest killer. This means improving efficacy, shortening the duration of treatment, and lowering the costs to patients and to society; and second, to complete the development of our vaccine delivery system that will be used for TB, as well as Ebola, Malaria, HIV, COVID and other infections. https://www.akageramedicines.com/vaccines.

We have been tasked by the National Institute of Health in Washington to focus on the worst diseases that face us. Our investors include the people of Rwanda though their sovereign investment initiative and half a dozen of the most intrepid private investors in north America, the Caribbean, Asia and Europe who also support us with their time, expertise and friendship. In 2022, we will announce a global partnership with a public pharmaceutical company, a large infusion of capital from Europe, and the timing of our clinical trials.

We are likely to succeed. And, if we do, it will be due to our scientists and many colleagues, partners and early believers, but especially due to Joe and Paul. Godspeed.

~ Mike

Michael C. Fairbanks  

co- Founder and Executive Chairman

Akagera Medicines