Roche Thailand Ltd., has marked its 50th anniversary in Thailand, with a focus on advancing science and medical access to improve the quality of life for people worldwide. Under the new leadership of Farid Bidgoli, General Manager of Roche Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos, the company has outlined four key priorities for 2021 and the future of healthcare, with emphasis on personalised healthcare, digitalisation, healthcare access and the cancer treatments for Thai patients.
Founded in 1971, Roche Thailand has been at the forefront of the Thai healthcare industry, with continued investments in research and development, amounting to THB 1 billion over the last 5 years. In Thailand, Roche has made significant contributions in areas concerning oncology, immunity, chronic kidney disease, infectious diseases, and rare diseases. In the last decade, the company has collectively treated over 2.9 million patients nationwide, with more than 10,000 cases of successful treatment in HER2-Positive breast cancer patients. Consecutively, on its mission to find the best possible cure and 'doing now what patients need next', Roche Thailand currently has 35 on-going active clinical trials, with more than 1,000 Thais with access to these treatments. At present, the company has twelve medicines listed in the Thailand National List of Essential Medicines.
In honour of 50 years in Thailand, Roche will leverage four key priorities for 2021 and beyond, as the company continues to search for better ways to prevent, diagnose and treat diseases, in order to make a sustainable contribution to the Thai society.
1) Personalised healthcare
The emphasis of tailored care for individual patients enables healthcare professionals to prevent, diagnose and treat patients more effectively and quickly. Roche's Personalised Healthcare strategy aims to provide medicines and diagnostic tools that enable tangible improvements in the health, quality of life, and survival of patients.
In oncology, Roche will utilise the ability to access comprehensive genomic profiling, coupled with the development of a rich clinical databases and infrastructure to access and analyse data. With the advancements in technology, Roche aims to enable healthcare professionals to target and diagnose illnesses on a molecular level - as the company work towards increasing tailor made medical treatments to treat the needs of individuals and small groups of patients. At the same time, Roche is also partnering with stakeholders across the entire cancer care ecosystem to deliver personalised healthcare, fueled by data, analytics and technology.
2) Digitalisation
Roche makes the most of opportunities brought on by digitalisation and advancements in technology. As a global pioneer in pharmaceuticals and diagnostics focused on advancing science to improve people's lives, Roche Thailand is pursuing a strategy that aims to fit the right treatment to each patient in the best way possible. This is done by improving Roche's technology ecosystem, which drives the organisation to create meaningful interaction with healthcare professionals.
By providing personalised and relevant information, Roche aims to deliver a seamless and well-informed experience to multichannel interactions. Most recently, Roche collaborated with two giant global corporations, namely Flatiron and Foundation Medicine, to collect big data and utilise them on a shared network of over 58,000 patients. The utilisation of big data can be leveraged for beneficial medical purposes and in turn saves time for healthcare professionals, and allows them to provide better treatment outcomes along the patient journey. Furthermore, Roche is also focused on upskilling people with digital transformation training programs, in order to enable employees to make a difference to patients and healthcare professionals.
Additionally, Roche launched the LungAndMe platform on various social media channels. The platform is representative of a guide for lung cancer patients, which enables them to access useful resources of information, as well as offering a space for patients to exchange stories to help boost morale, keep personal medical records and track their symptoms electronically for the beneficial use of both patients and medical professionals.
3) Access to healthcare
Roche believes that everyone has the right to access equal healthcare, and thus the company's on-going mission to provide timely and accessible healthcare for all, through the advocate of reimbursement schemes. For out-of-pocket patients, Roche Thailand is also working with financial and insurance partners across Thailand to offer patient access programs that help them either start treatment or continue for the full treatment duration.
In 2020, Roche Thailand has also supported the funding with Agnos Heath, the health-tech startup winner of the Roche Open Innovation Challenges for 'Greater Accessibility, to build a patient community platform, which makes use of AI technology.
4) Cancer Treatments for Thai patients
Roche Thailand tackles the challenges of cancer diagnosis and access to treatment during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, there were 190,636 new cases and 124,866 cancer-related deaths in Thailand ranging from liver, lung and breast cancer. Roche is committed to play a key role in leading the battle to cure many types of cancer, working alongside healthcare partners to find the best solutions for people impacted by the disease, as well as providing the best support and access for people currently enrolled in clinical trials.
In parallel, Roche will continue to deliver medicines and diagnostics for patients across a broad range of other disease areas and is working with healthcare providers, laboratories, authorities and organisations to help make sure that patients continue to receive the tests, treatment and care they need during these challenging times.
Farid Bidgoli, General Manager of Roche Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos said: "Roche, with our world class capabilities and over 50 years in the Thailand will continue the quest of personalised, accessible and quality healthcare, to make vital medicines and treatments accessible to all in Thailand. A very special thank you to our Thai team who continuously work hard to improve healthcare whenever and wherever possible, both alone and in partnership. As healthcare demands are increasing and healthcare systems are looking for ways to manage their expenditure, it's essential that we contribute our part to the solution. As we always say at Roche, groundbreaking advances in healthcare are only meaningful when they reach the people who need them."
Roche's response to the COVID-19 pandemic
As a leading healthcare company, Roche is doing its part around the world and in Thailand to support the minimization of the COVID-19 impact. So far, the company has developed many diagnostic solutions that help to detect and diagnose the infection in patients, as well as providing digital support to healthcare systems.
For our research into therapies, Roche is committed to improving the treatment of COVID-19 via an active involvement in understanding the potential of Roche's existing portfolio, combined with exploring the potential of Roche's investigational molecules. Moreover, Roche Thailand also supports the Thai government in donating 3,300 SARS-COV-2 test kits, 38,000 masks and training for over 1,400 medical professionals, as well as providing other essential medicines.
"At Roche, we understand that the impact of COVID-19 goes beyond those who contract it. This is the reason why we are working with healthcare providers, laboratories, authorities and organisations across Thailand and around the world to help make sure that patients continue to receive the tests, treatment and care they need during these challenging times. As we learn from the pandemic, we are partnering with governments and other stakeholders to make healthcare stronger and more sustainable in the future, for the betterment of society and people in Thailand," Bidgoli said in closing remarks.
About Roche Thailand
For 125 years, Roche has been committed to improving lives. Headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, Roche continues to search for better ways to prevent, diagnose and treat diseases and make a sustainable contribution to society. We have one purpose: to do now what patients need next.
Roche have had a presence in Thailand since 1971 and operate across two key businesses, Roche Pharmaceuticals and Roche Diagnostics. The ultimate aim of our almost 500 employees across the country is to enable Thai patients to gain access to our medicines and diagnostic tests in order to detect illnesses early and to treat them with life-saving and life-changing medicines.
Roche Pharmaceuticals focuses on major unmet medical needs and areas of expertise, including the major areas of cancer, immunity, chronic kidney disease, infectious diseases and rare diseases. In the past 50 years, Roche Thailand were able to bring more than 50 innovative medicines to improve Thai people's quality of lives. 2.9 million Thai patients have been treated with our products over the last 10 years.
Thirty-two medicines developed by Roche are included in the WHO Model Lists of Essential Medicines and twelve medicines are included in the Thailand National List of Essential Medicines. Beyond this, Thailand plays an important role in the research and development (R&D) network for Roche. In fact, Roche Thailand is one of the largest investors in clinical trials in Thailand, investing THB 400 million over the last 10 years in clinical trials across a range of disease areas. More than 1,000 Thais currently have access to treatments through these clinical trials.
Since 2015, Roche Thailand have treated more than 10,000 HER2-Positive breast cancer patients, improving the quality of life for many of Thai women and giving them the most important thing in life, time to live.
Source: Spark Communications