Malawi is set to reduce its dependence on costly overseas cancer treatment after reaching a landmark partnership with the International Blantyre Cancer Centre (IBCC), a private specialist hospital founded by banker and investor Thomson Mpinganjira.

The agreement will allow the Ministry of Health to begin referring eligible public patients to the facility, marking one of the country's biggest public-private healthcare partnerships and giving many cancer patients access to radiotherapy without leaving Malawi.

For years, Malawians requiring radiotherapy were routinely referred to hospitals in countries such as South Africa and India because the country lacked the specialised equipment needed to treat many forms of cancer.

The arrangement placed a heavy financial burden on both families and the government, while forcing seriously ill patients to seek care far from home.

Speaking during a visit by a Ministry of Health delegation ahead of the signing of the referral agreement, Mpinganjira said the hospital was established to address those challenges rather than generate profits.

"This facility was not built to make money," he said, adding that it was inspired by the hardships Malawians faced while travelling abroad for treatment, including high accommodation costs and, in some cases, poor treatment and discrimination.

Mpinganjira built the hospital in memory of his wife, Barbara, who died from cancer in 2019 after receiving treatment outside Malawi. The facility officially opened in March 2024 as Malawi's first private centre to provide radiotherapy services, introducing a treatment that had previously been unavailable domestically.

The latest agreement represents more than an expansion of healthcare access. It signals a shift in how Malawi intends to finance specialist care by using domestic private capacity instead of relying almost entirely on expensive overseas referrals.

Health Secretary Dr Dan Namarika described the partnership as a major step towards improving access to specialised cancer treatment while reducing the burden on patients and strengthening the country's healthcare system.

The move comes as African governments increasingly look to public-private partnerships to bridge gaps in specialist healthcare, particularly in oncology, where access to radiotherapy remains limited across much of the continent. The World Health Organization estimates that around half of all cancer patients require radiotherapy at some stage of treatment, yet access remains severely constrained in many low-income countries.

Mpinganjira, founder of FDH Financial Holdings, has built one of Malawi's largest financial services groups through interests spanning banking, insurance and investment. His business career, however, has also attracted controversy. In 2021, he was convicted in a high-profile judicial bribery case linked to Malawi's 2019 presidential election dispute.

He appealed the conviction, and the case remains one of the defining chapters of his public profile.

Despite that history, Mpinganjira has continued to invest heavily in philanthropy through the Thomson and Barbara Mpinganjira Foundation, which supports healthcare, education and youth development. For Malawi, the referral agreement could prove to be one of the most significant outcomes of that philanthropy. By allowing more patients to receive specialist treatment at home, the government hopes to reduce reliance on overseas hospitals, improve access to life-saving cancer care and keep more healthcare spending within the domestic economy.