MSD launches cervical cancer awareness service
Pharmaceutical company MSD has launched a cervical cancer-related information service for women in China.
The accurate and authoritative information service will also have content on HPV, or human papillomavirus vaccines.
By teaming up with AliHealth, the medical and health arm of internet behemoth Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, MSD’s China subsidiary pledged to create a preventive health management system combining healthcare knowledge and technologies.
Users of Taobao, Alibaba’s online marketplace, can type in keywords “Say no to cervical cancer”, and access relevant health-related information.
“MSD’s initiative is in line with the ‘Healthy China 2030 Plan’ to strengthen management and put the prevention-first concept into action,” said Joseph Romanelli, president of MSD China.
He said the collaboration with AliHealth will serve as a pilot program before it kicks off a broader-based disease prevention and detection initiative that would serve a wider audience.
This partnership also takes advantage of Alibaba’s ecosystem to target 120 million adult women within the right age group in 240 cities, so that they stand to receive tailormade preventive cervical health services, said Wang Lei, CEO of AliHealth.
“We are hoping to leverage our platforms, powerful content productivity, and MSD China’s expertise to provide innovative health services for the 500 million active users on Alibaba’s retail platforms…so as to improve health literacy and drive the ‘Healthy China’ initiative,” he said.
Cervical cancer is the second-most common malignant cancer threatening Chinese women aged
We want to use the most efficient channel to help consumers get a better understanding of disease and health risks.”
Joseph Romanelli,
between 15 and 44. According to Cancer Statistics in China 2015, there were nearly 100,000 new cases and the disease cost over 30,000 lives that year.
The use of HPV has been proven by the American Society of Clinical Oncology as the best strategy for the primary prevention of such cancer.
Since last year, MSD China has distributed its Gardasil 4 HPV, through mainland distributor Chongqing Zhifei Biological Products Co.
“Amid a rising online population in China, we want to use the most efficient channel to help consumers get a better understanding of disease and health risks,” said MSD’s Romanelli.
“We hope to work closer with partners adept at digital technologies to help build an ecosystem that will ultimately help both physicians and patients.”
China’s younger population is used to relying on the internet to search for medical information amid widespread concern about health.
To meet that need, internet giant Tencent Holdings Ltd launched in December its own medical-information platform called Tencent Yidian through its popular social networking app WeChat.