"I am not an expert in the pharmaceutical industry. However, everything I have seen here is impressive," Mr Mwenda said, after being given a guided tour of the Dei BioPharma plant in Matugga on Friday. "What Magoola is doing looks great, and the facility is highly equipped."
Weeks earlier, Mwenda had branded Dr. Magoola a conman in print, accusing the state of throwing public money at fraudulent schemes and suggesting President Museveni's judgement might be slipping with age.
The president did not let the claim pass. In a public letter, Mr Museveni told Mr Mwenda he had no business attacking factories he had never visited or men he had never interviewed. "You are supposed to be a journalist," he wrote.
"Why do you not interview these 'conmen' such as Magoola, Senfuka, etc.? They are here in Uganda. They are where you can reach them and even the assets they have put on the ground. Visit Magoola's factories in Matugga and Kamuli."
On Friday, Mwenda told journalists that he was wrong in his earlier claims.
"Beyond being a journalist, I also believe in the principles of natural justice, which dictate that you should not act as a judge and prosecutor in the same case, nor judge someone without listening to them. I came here to watch, observe, listen, learn and understand."
He said he had spoken to Dr. Magoola's staff, "including a young pharmacist with a doctorate, and the chief executive officer," and come away persuaded.
"They are highly educated and gave me convincing explanations of their operations. I am inclined to believe that investing in a project like this can be beneficial for the country."
He also suggested his own scepticism may have said more about him than about Dr. Magoola.
"I questioned whether my initial skepticism was a symptom of a colonized mindset that struggles to accept that a black man can start a company destined to become worth billions of dollars," he said, describing what he called "epistemic violence" — a tendency, he argued, for Africans to doubt the achievements of their own people.
"I am willing to give Magoola the benefit of the doubt. I am inclined to disregard instincts that stem from a history of mental conditioning."
The motormouthed journalist recalled telling Dr. Magoola, in the company's boardroom, that the same story told by a white founder with a white staff would likely have been believed without question.
He cited Elon Musk and Bill Gates as men who started with nothing and were taken at their word, and said Dr Magoola's patents in HIV and cancer vaccines had nearly drawn the same reflexive doubt from him before he caught himself.
"I initially wondered how it could be that after 100 years of global scientific research, it is Magoola from Busoga, from Kamuli, who is inventing this," he admitted.
"I realized that I was undermining and underestimating him simply because he is a Ugandan, a black man from Kamuli who studied at Busoga College Mwiri."
Mr Mwenda then turned to Dr Magoola and delivered the apology he had promised the president he would make.
"I want to apologize for mischaracterizing you," he said. "I apologize for making a judgment about you without even talking to you. I apologize for making accusations against your work without visiting your plant. I ask for your forgiveness."
He said he would explain the visit to President Museveni in person next week.
Despite the change of heart, Mr Mwenda used the visit to press one complaint against the government itself, accusing state health institutions of undercutting the very investment they had made.
He named the Ministry of Health, the Uganda Cancer Institute and the National Medical Stores as bodies still importing drugs from India and China instead of buying from Dei BioPharma.
"If the government cannot provide a domestic market and act as the primary buyer for these products, the investment strategy falls short," he said, urging their leadership to visit the plant and direct budget toward locally made drugs.
He argued the numbers made the case for itself.
"The company has the potential to generate annual revenues of $50 billion," he said. "If we support him and he successfully produces even a single drug that earns Uganda an annual revenue of $20 billion, or even if it only captures 20 percent of what the major American companies earn — which would be $10 billion — that completely justifies the initiative. Against those kinds of returns, a $400 million government investment is highly practical."
Dr. Magoola said that Dei BioPharma holds more than 100 patents covering biologic medicines, including therapeutic proteins, monoclonal antibodies, cytokines and advanced vaccines, none of which are currently manufactured anywhere else in Africa.
"For the first time, we are ensuring that Uganda becomes the first African country to manufacture these biological drugs," he said, framing roughly 80% of the world's population — those currently priced out of biologics — as the company's natural export market.
He said the firm expected to create more than 40,000 direct jobs at Matugga, with a further $10bn investment planned for a second site in Kamuli alongside American investors, projected to generate another 50,000 jobs within a decade.
He pointed to existing global sales of comparable drugs — the cancer treatment pembrolizumab, worth close to $40bn a year, and the diabetes and weight-loss drugs Ozempic, Mounjaro and Zepbound, with combined sales nearing $100bn annually — as evidence the market for the company's products already exists.
"The risk of failure is minimal once the infrastructure is fully operational because the demand is already there," he said.
He also credited President Museveni with persuading him years ago not to sell the company's early research to American pharmaceutical firms that approached him while he was recovering from malaria.
"He told me never to sell it, warning that doing so would betray the African cause," Dr Magoola said.
Dr. Patrick Wakida, chairman of the company's board of governors, told the visiting party that the government holds a 9.4% stake in Dei BioPharma, with the remainder owned by Dr Magoola and private shareholders.
He said the company could eventually contribute as much as $500bn to an economy currently worth about $67bn, with the 40,000 jobs already cited likely to double once casual and supplier-side employment is counted.
"You are creating an economy within an economy," he said.
Mr Wakida acknowledged the project had moved more slowly than planned.
"Capitalising an investment of this nature is sometimes a challenge," he said, confirming Cabinet had approved roughly $300m in additional funding this financial year, though he could not say exactly how much had been disbursed. Public records show the government has put in the equivalent of around 723.4 billion Ugandan shillings since 2020, with a further shs1.6 trillion approved more recently to complete the Matugga and Kamuli facilities.
Uganda's Auditor General has flagged the absence of a formal valuation of the company at the time the state took its stake, an issue that continues to draw scrutiny from MPs.