Richard Francis Addresses biosimilars and market access in Guandong, China [1]
On November 19, Richard Francis, Global Head of Sandoz, a Novartis Company presented two key regional policy recommendations at this year’s International Consultative Conference for Economic Development (ICCFED) in Guangzhou, China. As part of the commitment of Novartis and its Sandoz division to improving access to healthcare in China, Richard was honored to share the Group’s expertise to help the Guangdong Province further develop into a leading high-quality and innovative hub for the pharmaceutical industry.
Linked to the Novartis and Sandoz engagement in Guangdong, Richard outlined two main topics of focus:
- Creating an innovative environment for the development of Biosimilars. Biosimilars are the fastest-growing and most exciting segment of the modern pharmaceutical industry. The opportunity for the impact of biosimilars in China is significant, due to pressures to contain healthcare costs, an ageing population and biologics coming off patent within the next few years. Specific aspects of the policy recommendation included establishing a clinical studies pilot program, increasing university funding for life sciences and facilitating open-communication between local life science industries and local government to explore and drive new possibilities and opportunities for biosimilars in Guandong.
- Creating an open market access environment for innovation. An open market access environment enables companies like Novartis to deliver innovative and high-quality medicines to patients in need. To further strengthen the environment in Guangdong, the Novartis Group has proposed that the Province consider promoting incentives to reward the development of high-quality medicines. Other suggested measures include putting innovative and high-quality medicines on drug lists in Community Health Centers and establishing innovative disease management models in partnership with industry stakeholders.
This year’s conference theme, Enhancing Global Collaboration for the Innovation-driven Growth and Win-win Development, is both timely and important as Guangdong enters the ‘new normal’ economy of rising living standards and wages. Guangdong is an economic success story, partly due to the government’s open door economic policies that welcome investment and create an excellent environment for export oriented growth. Guangdong is China’s export leader.
Sandoz and Novartis looks forward to continuing to work with Guangdong into its next economic chapter and to providing more support to the Chinese government as it seeks to improve the prosperity and health of its citizens.