Few years ago, the trained nurse entered the healtech sector with a solution that helps blood banks recruit donors. She later pivoted to focus on helping institutions and their likes find the right participants for their clinical trials in Africa. Her choices proved judicious as the startup has already won her several awards, testifying of the positive impacts she is having on the continent. 

Melissa Bime (photo) is a Cameroonian nurse, tech entrepreneur, and co-founder of Infiuss Health, a “Unified Solution for Outsourced Clinical Research in Africa.”  

Her startup was founded, in 2016, as an online blood bank aimed at reducing mortality induced by blood shortage. After a successful blood donation campaign, the startup partnered with several health centers in Cameroon and even earned several awards, including the 2018 Cartier Women's Initiative Awards (worth US$100,000) and the USAID Inclusive Access to Health Award.

In 2020, Melissa turned her startup into a clinical trial management company for hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, etc., in Africa.

“We are building highly study-specific and very flexible solutions that allow sponsors to find the right participants, sites, and primary investigators so that they can run fully remote, or hybrid, clinical research studies," Infiuss informs on its website. 

“If you are a company working on a medical trial and trying to figure out how to diversify the participant cohorts, we are providing a cheaper alternative than recruiting in the United States,” Melissa explained in 2021. 

In October 2021, she won the 43North Competition entitling her to a US$500,000 prize. In January 2022, she relocated her business to Buffalo, New York.  

Melchior Koba