Local heroes

Global health requires regional solutions for a true access model

The biopharmaceutical industry exists to transform and, in some cases, even save lives. Yet many people – nearly two billion, according to the World Health Organization – struggle to receive the medicines they need.

Barriers to healthcare exist worldwide. People from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) can have difficulty accessing routine or preventative care due to a lack of resources and infrastructure in their communities.

And in developed nations, patients can face similar challenges based on geography or proximity to care, difficulties getting diagnosed with a rare disease, or struggles accessing needed treatments due to cost pressures.

For the pharmaceutical industry, it’s not enough to bring our medicines to market. We must find new ways to support the patients we serve by bridging these gaps, providing sustainable access to life-transforming medical innovation worldwide.

Access is a complex issue that requires a multi-stakeholder approach; no single organization can solve it alone.

At Takeda, we’ve prioritised access by integrating it into our business strategy. From early research to launch, to responding to requests for our medicines, we work with local policymakers, healthcare stakeholders, industry partners, advocacy groups, and patients to find ways to make our treatments available to people who need them.

This may include capacity building for underserved populations, evidence generation to demonstrate the value of our treatments, and innovative patient access programmes to support patients who may otherwise fall through the cracks.

Throughout this process, we focus on keeping decision-making local, as close to the patient as possible so that we can develop solutions that meet their needs.

We also take the long view and continue to generate evidence globally throughout the life cycle of our products to ensure our scientific breakthroughs are valued and made available to the patients who can benefit from them.

Takeda is addressing local barriers to access to help people live their healthiest lives possible. Given the unique attributes of each country and healthcare system, we work to tailor and focus our efforts on the specific and diverse needs of patients in their local context.

Our goal is that every patient who needs our medicines and treatments has access – regardless of geography, age, education level or socioe-conomic status.

To accelerate access to treatments, we’ve developed a tiered pricing model, grouping countries into different pricing tiers based on factors such as Gross Domestic Product, healthcare system maturity, out-of-pocket expenditures and local policies covering vaccinations or care for rare diseases.

By locally adjusting prices relative to a country’s economic stage, we can unlock access for patients while building long-term business sustainability.

While actions like these can help support and expand equitable access to our medicines and vaccines, we also know that we alone don’t hold all the answers.

Sustainable solutions can only be found by partnering with various stakeholders across the value chain – from governments, healthcare providers and policymakers to patients and advocates. Only by harnessing our collective expertise, relationships, insights and resources can we hope to support sustainable access around the world.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, gaps in local healthcare ecosystems became even more prominent as hospitals and clinics became overwhelmed, leading to delayed or suspended appointments and care.

For example, in the Philippines, patients with Hodgkin’s lymphoma who had struggled historically with a lack of early and proper diagnosis and/or managing the cost of treatment, faced additional barriers to access.

Within the first few months of community quarantine in the Philippines, Takeda worked with healthcare partners and physicians to administer treatment to patients by ensuring doses were delivered directly to them in a timely manner.

Support was also provided to nearly 500 lymphoma patients in the Philippines using a patient programme to help bridge the affordability gap.

Together with our partners, we made sure that the much-needed practitioner training and upskilling – from diagnosis to patient care – continued despite the constraints of the pandemic.

This also involved delivering its pathology workshop series in partnership with the Philippines Society of Pathologists to more than 1,700 pathologists between 2019 and 2021 to build capacity in the diagnosis of lymphomas.

We also accelerated the use of digital platforms to bring educational resources to patients, healthcare professionals and the broader community, raising awareness about the condition and its treatment options.

Our collaboration with local partners also extends to those in developed countries such as the UK.

For example, in partnership with experts from academia, clinical and patient communities and with advice from experts from the UK’s National Health Service and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, we’ve co-authored two white papers.

These outline a proposed solution to the access challenge for combination treatments, a promising approach to treating more conditions by using our growing understanding of the underlying causes of disease.

It’s tremendously exciting and energising to be part of an industry that brings groundbreaking science and innovative treatments to the world. Yet, every day, my colleagues and I see or speak with individuals who may feel frustrated or alone as they try to navigate increasingly complex healthcare systems and overcome the inequities and barriers to accessing the care they need.

That’s why it’s so important for pharma companies to develop a deep understanding of the patient journey and build trusting partnerships with local stakeholders by sharing information transparently, listening, and responding to feedback.

This approach allows industry to create tailored solutions that ensure equitable access to our medicines and products while supporting the sustainability of local healthcare systems.

In our experience, individual corporate efforts combined with local public and private partnerships is the best way to achieve equitable and sustainable access to medicines and healthcare. Pharma is making progress via our tiered pricing and access to medicines and patient assistance programmes, but there’s still more work to be done.

Ramona Sequeira is President, Global Portfolio Division at Takeda.
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