World is now in the period of living with Covid-19, says Pharma exec
ON March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared Covid-19 a pandemic as the agency was “deeply concerned by the alarming levels of spread and severity of the outbreak.” WHO also expressed concern about “the alarming levels of inaction.”
Almost two years and four months later, William “Bill” Anderson, Roche Pharmaceutical Inc.–global CEO, said the world is “in that living with Covid-19 period” and that “we are not in the pandemic; we are in the endemic.”
Speaking at the “Healthcare Innovation Access Forum: Bringing Groundbreaking Advances Within Reach” at The Manila Hotel on July 4, Anderson said that while there are still people getting sick, not too many people are ending up in the hospital like before.
“And it is going to continue. For me, I would say we are not in the pandemic. We are in the endemic. This is a new reality. And then, hopefully over time, there will be less serious disease,” Anderson said.
Enough supply
HE added that Roche has enough supply of Tocilizumab, the drug that is given to patients with severe Covid-19, especially now that the disease is severely hitting fewer patients.
“We committed very quickly our largest facility in the world, plus we hired other facilities from two other bio pharmaceutical companies to produce Tocilizumab for the pandemic,” he said.
“Even with three facilities, it was not enough to supply all the needs when the Delta and Omicron waves hit. We were able to supply most of the countries but now we have enough to cover the need,” Anderson added.
The forum was part of Anderson’s twoday visit to the Philippines with the goal of better understanding the health and related industry situation in the country as well as have an exchange of ideas and sharing of the company’s current projects with country leaders and health-care ecosystem stakeholders.
Beacon of hope
IN his talk, Anderson pointed out that the passing of the Universal Healthcare (UHC) Law, the National Integrated Cancer Control Act (NICCA) and recently, the guidelines for the Reliance Pathway has brought a beacon of hope in the health-care system in the Philippines.
He emphasized that these policies will provide for timely access and financial support to patients to avail of innovative care that will give aspiration, gratitude and fuller lives to patients and their families.
“We have the frameworks and now, how do we really bring them to life with funding, with programs, with the tactical implementation across various geographic regions of the country and we are really pleased to be part of that. We face a fundamental evolution of health care where partnerships are crucial,” Anderson said.
He assured everyone that Roche is committed to help improve access to health-care innovations with Low and Middle Income Countries (LMIC) with the goal of doubling the number of patients in LMIC with access to Roche innovative care.
Proof of concepts
WORKING proof of concepts which include the Mission Leapfrog, Project Extension for Community Health Outcomes (ECHO), Roche Access Program (RAP), Project Bridge or Breast Cancer Integrated Disease solutions in a Guidelinedriven Ecosystem, Integrated Care Network for Lung Cancer (I CAN for Lung Cancer), among others, are impactful partnerships that require stakeholders working together to achieve the shared vision of each person with access to innovative diagnosis and treatment, whether they are city executives or farmers in provinces.
Present during the event were Department of Health Assistant Secretary Dr. Maria Francia M. Laxamana; Dr. Sunil Anand, Executive Director of ECHO India; Dante Torres, Former Mayor of Guagua, Pampanga; Dr. RJ Suguitan, Municipal Health Officer of Samal, Bataan; Dr. Corazon Ngelangel, Member of the National Integrated Cancer Control Act or NICCA Council, President of the Philippine Cancer Society, Member and Past President of the Philippine
Society for Medical Oncology; Teodoro Padilla, Executive Director, Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Association of the Philippines (PHAP); Karen Alparce-Villanueva, President of the Philippine Alliance of Patient Organizations (PAPO); Atty. Mika Sollano and Atty. Cyril Santiago, Representatives from the Office of Sen. Bong Go.
“Gone are the days when a company like ours would come and hire I would say a bunch of salespersons who are going to sell medicines. That is not our business. We are bringing innovation. We are here to work with local stakeholders on how these patients get these medicines,” Anderson said.
Meeting
PRIOR to the forum, Anderson met, together with Dr. Diana Edralin, Roche (Philippines) General Manger, Dr. Teresa Diokno, Country Medical Director and National Ecosystem Lead and Heatlhcare Ecosystem Chapter Lead Sheryl Enriquez. Sen. Joseph Victor “JV Ejercito, the principal author of the UHC Law.
During the meeting, Ejercito acknowledged that cancer as a priority issue for health care should be addressed by the Senate by providing more access funds for cancer treatments, inclusion of innovative treatments and diagnostics to the national formulary and more infrastructure for cancer diagnosis and treatment.
To end his talk, Anderson made two personal commitments. The first commitment was for Roche to continuously invest in research and development (R&D) to the point that it might eat up to two thirds of the budget.
“The pandemic showed us we desperately need great new innovations from life science companies,” he said.
Secondly, Anderson is committed to pricing responsibly. This means that Roche “is committed to prices that all stakeholders feel are reasonable and that requires dialogue, careful analysis.”
“We put health first, the health of patients first and our financials are second. And this means that if that is good for the patient, if that is prevention and that means they will never need medicine, we will do that,” Anderson said.