FRANCE – Sanofi Global Health has launched a new brand of standard of care medicines produced by Sanofi dedicated for nonprofit distribution to at-risk populations in the low-income countries.
Sanofi intends to make 30 of its treatments, including insulin, available on a not-for-profit basis in 40 lower-income countries in the first step of its plan to increase access to its medicines worldwide.
The treatments, all categorized as essential medicines by the World Health Organization, cover a variety of therapeutic areas, though Sanofi places extra emphasis on products for tuberculosis, cancer and diabetes.
The treatments availed by Sanofi, insulin in particular has been singled out by the UN agency as a life-saving medicine for diabetics that is difficult to access in many lower-income countries, where the burden of disease is growing.
The Paris-based drugmaker is also creating a fund worth US$25 million, which will go towards supporting local start-up healthcare businesses and providing training on using the medicines, Sanofi said. The goal is to help establish local entities that can be sustainable.
Jon Fairest, head of Sanofi Global Health Unit, said, “The launch of the Impact brand and our Impact Fund are our latest steps to make our medicines available and to help bring quality, sustainable healthcare to people in the world’s poorest countries.”
“Innovation from my experience on the African continent and the digitalization with startup companies is pretty amazing,” Sanofi’s said in an interview.
“But they perhaps don’t get the visibility that they do in the more developed world, so therefore they don’t get the investment and funding.”
The treatments availed by Sanofi, insulin in particular has been singled out by the UN agency as a life-saving medicine for diabetics that is difficult to access in many lower-income countries, where the burden of disease is growing.
Sanofi Global Health Unit, the nonprofit division of the French drugmaker was established in April of last year to distribute medicines and bolster healthcare systems in low-income countries.
“In many of these countries, it’s a pandemic in itself in terms of the number of people with cardio/metabolic diseases,” Fairest said.
“No one’s been trained on how to even manage it. When we move into a country and we have success with a program, we’re leaving a true legacy around overall healthcare.”
To help distinguish its not-for-profit offerings, Sanofi has announced that it is launching them as a brand, dubbed Impact.
The effort will help make distribution of the 30 different drugs more efficient and cost effective, Fairest said.
To give the Impact initiative a chance to succeed requires a level of commitment from the host countries.
Sanofi is making visits—most recently to Rwanda—to figure out which nations in which to launch. Fairest said that once success is demonstrated, it will be easier to take Impact to neighboring countries.
Sanofi’s initiative has reached roughly 150,000 patients so far. The company is planning for millions in the future and can only achieve that by building systems that can be scalable and self-sustainable.
“We’re not going to invest forever. Once we build the model and we feel that patients are improving, we would expect them to take this forward,” Fairest said.
“We want to learn. We’ll start with some target countries, look at how we take it forward and go from there.”
The countries involved are mainly in Africa, from Niger to Zimbabwe. Conflict-hit countries such as Syria are also part of the initiative, as well as some Asian countries including Cambodia and Myanmar
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