Somewhere between lecturing pharmacy students at Makerere University and winning the Ministry of Health’s Pharmacist of the Year award — twice — Dr. Lutoti Stephen was quietly working on something bigger.
The result is ELOCID: a locally manufactured herbal formulation for ulcers and gastric disorders, now approved by the National Drug Authority of Uganda and produced by Eliophram Uganda Limited. It is not an import. It is not a repackaged foreign formula. It was made here, by a Ugandan, from African plants — and that alone makes it worth paying attention to.
ELOCID is built around bioactive extracts from three medicinal plants — Aspilia africana, Hoslundia opposita, and Bidens pilosa — all of which have long histories in traditional African medicine and have increasingly attracted scientific interest for their therapeutic properties.
Dr. Lutoti formulated the product as a triple-therapy solution, combining the three plant extracts into a single treatment targeting peptic ulcers and other gastric conditions. The approach mirrors conventional triple-therapy protocols used in ulcer treatment, but draws entirely from plant-based sources rather than synthetic compounds.
Getting it to this point — from research to a shelf-ready, NDA-approved product — is the part that most people don’t see. Herbal medicines in Uganda occupy a complicated space, often trusted at the community level but rarely making it through the rigorous approval process that gives them legitimacy in formal healthcare settings. ELOCID has cleared that bar.
He is a pharmacist and academic — a lecturer at Makerere University’s School of Health Sciences — but his profile extends well beyond the classroom. The Ministry of Health recognised him as Pharmacist of the Year in both 2021 and 2022, two consecutive awards that signal something beyond routine professional excellence.
That recognition came before ELOCID was public. It means the pharmaceutical community already knew who he was. ELOCID is the answer to what he was working toward.
Ulcers are far more common among university students than most people openly discuss. The combination of irregular eating, academic stress, excessive caffeine, and in some cases alcohol creates exactly the conditions under which gastric problems develop and worsen. Many students self-medicate, delay treatment, or rely on antacids that manage symptoms without addressing underlying causes.
A locally produced, NDA-approved herbal alternative — if accessible and affordable — changes the conversation for a generation that is increasingly interested in both wellness and in supporting homegrown solutions.
Beyond the personal health angle, ELOCID is also a proof of concept that matters to pharmacy students, medical students, and aspiring researchers at Makerere and across Uganda. One of their own lecturers has done what textbooks describe as the destination — taken a research idea, validated it scientifically, navigated regulatory approval, and brought a product to market.
That is not a small thing.
Uganda imports the vast majority of its pharmaceutical products. The infrastructure for local drug manufacturing exists but remains underdeveloped, and the gap between traditional herbal knowledge and formally approved medicine has historically been wide.
Dr. Lutoti’s work through Eliophram Uganda Limited represents an attempt to close that gap — to take plants that Ugandan grandmothers have known about for generations, subject them to the scrutiny of modern pharmacology, and produce something that can sit in a pharmacy and be prescribed with confidence.
ELOCID is one product. But the model it demonstrates — Ugandan researcher, Ugandan plants, Ugandan manufacturer, Ugandan regulatory approval — is a template that the country’s pharmaceutical sector badly needs more of.
