Health ecosystem faces critical issues

Roche, the Swiss company known for innovation in healthcare around the globe for diseases particularly cancer and rare diseases, has been in Pakistan for four decades.

In an exclusive interview to The Express Tribune, Roche Pakistan MD Hafsa Shamsie talked about Roche’s innovation, its commitment to patients and its strong belief that affordability should not drive access.

She talked about the high incidence of cancer in Pakistan, in particular breast cancer, and also about rare diseases such as Hemophilia, Multiple Sclerosis and Spinal Muscular Atrophy. In fact, she went on to suggest that with our size of the population, rare diseases still impact a great many people in Pakistan who often find themselves on the outside of the mainstream healthcare system.

In her view, the top three critical challenges facing the health ecosystem and landscape of Pakistan was the lack of appropriate funding by the government, an urgent need to address policy gaps and to bring about the expansion of the public health system.

She also said that disease awareness and health literacy was very important as people often did not even know what disease they have and do not seek treatments at the right time.

As a company, she envisions to make the most impact in delinking affordability and access. Roche has a patient support programme that has supported over 20,000 patients supporting treatment worth over Rs3 billion.

Also, what was really important was to bring innovation to Pakistan in cancer, rare diseases and ophthamology. She mentioned the latest example of Roche bringing innovation to Pakistan in the field of ophthamology with a soon-to-be-launched drug which will help those with eye conditions such as wet eye phenomenon often associated with diabetes which is very widespread in Pakistan.

The drug is still awaiting approval, and she stressed that the quicker the approval is issued, the faster the unmet needs of the population could be addressed in this critical healthcare area.

She said that this would go a long way in preventing blindness and loss of vision in Pakistan.

Touching upon breast cancer, she stressed that breast cancer’s early diagnosis and timely intervention were extremely important as Pakistan has the highest incidence of breast cancer in Asia and currently one in eight Pakistani women are at risk of developing breast cancer in their lifetimes.

“Awareness about women cancers does exist, although mindsets and stigmas are still a problem but we want to see the moving of the goalposts towards early detection and diagnosis and ultimate treatment.”

The way to realise these ambitions for a better health landscape was through shaping policy and developing public-private partnerships and public health programmes.

Finally, she talked about being one of a handful of female CEOs in Pakistan where her main advice was that women should not be held back in what they wanted to do even if this meant going beyond the comfort zone.

When asked about Roche’s culture and vision, she said that Roche was a company that had a strong sense of purpose and that purpose also gave purpose to her work and the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of Pakistanis and a healthier future for the nation.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 26^th, 2023.

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