BEIJING, June 15, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Today Sanofi, a global healthcare leader, announces the launch of its strategic Healthy Community Project with its partners the Chinese Medical Doctor Association, Community Health Association of China, China International Exchange and Promotive Association for Medical and Health Care. The project aims to build comprehensive capabilities, while exploring and practicing effective community chronic disease management in order to meet the urgent need for healthcare and disease management in communities.
"The Healthy Community Project is another strategic step Sanofi is taking to echo the Chinese government's call to strengthen community healthcare," Jean-Christophe Pointeau, General Manager of Pharma, Sanofi China said. "As one of the most strategically important projects in China, the Healthy Community Project gathers the best of our resources and is committed to providing community healthcare professionals with the most comprehensive solutions and platform for know-how knowledge."
China has a large population with chronic diseases, among which 114 million [1] have diabetes; and 290 million [2] have cardiovascular diseases. At the same time, incidence rates of chronic diseases have been on the rise. Demand for healthcare that supports chronic diseases has been growing with the increasing population. There is an urgent need for chronic diseases be prevented and treated at an early stage.
Community healthcare centers play an extremely important role in chronic diseases prevention and treatment. In September 2015, the State Council General Office published 'Guidance on Building a Multi-tiered Healthcare System.' The essence of this publication can be summarized as "diagnosis at community level, two-way referral for patients, acute and chronic disease treatments through different ways, and integration within the system."
In fact, with growing attention and investment from the Chinese government, China's community healthcare market has been expanding. In recent years, community healthcare centers have been equipped with better facilities and patient visits have been increasing with an even faster growth rate than that of major hospitals. However, in light of the large population of patients, there are ever growing needs to improve community healthcare centers' managerial expertise, community doctors' clinical skills and patients' self-management capabilities. Only when community healthcare centers provide better general services, can the goal of multi-tiered management policy be achieved.
The Healthy Community Project echoes the Chinese government's call to strengthen community healthcare, one of China's healthcare reform goals. In carrying out the project, Sanofi will share its deep know-how knowledge and best practices of chronic disease management, in areas such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and central nervous system diseases, with Chinese communities. Sanofi will work together with its partners and healthcare professionals to help improve community physicians' clinical skills, community healthcare centers' managerial expertise and patients' self-management capabilities so more patients in China can benefit from better community healthcare services.
The Healthy Community Project aims to cover 8,500 community hospitals or health centers in 42 Chinese cities to benefit 30,000 community physicians and 23 million patients by 2020. Currently, the first phase of the project has been put into operation and is available for China's cardiovascular disease and diabetes patients, the largest share of China's chronic disease population. The project covers many aspects within the healthcare system, including management personnel, doctors and patients.
Jean-Christophe Pointeau pointed out that Sanofi's investment in China's community healthcare shows strong commitment to serve China and its confidence in long-term development in the country. He said, "Sanofi is a leading chronic disease company in China. Our experience and professionalism can help China improve its chronic disease management capabilities. In the future, we will continue to work together with the Chinese government, medical associations and healthcare professionals, and deploy various resources to build the most dynamic system in China's healthcare sector and benefit as many patients as possible."
About Sanofi
Sanofi, a global healthcare leader, discovers, develops and distributes therapeutic solutions focused on patients' needs. Sanofi is organized into five global business units: Diabetes and Cardiovascular, General Medicines and Emerging Markets, Sanofi Genzyme, Sanofi Pasteur and Merial. Sanofi is listed in Paris (EURONEXT: SAN) and in New York (NYSE: SNY).
For more information, please visit www.sanofi.com.
About Sanofi China
In 1982, Sanofi opened its first office in China. Sanofi China has a diversified business that ranges from pharmaceuticals, vaccines, consumer healthcare and rare diseases (Genzyme) to animal health (Merial). Sanofi's China headquarters in Shanghai are supported by 11 branches in Beijing, Tianjin, Shenyang, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Wuhan, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Jinan and Urumqi. As of 2015, Sanofi had more than 9,000 employees in China.
Sanofi has seven manufacturing facilities in China to meet the increasing demand of the China market. These plants are located in Beijing, Hangzhou (two plants), Tangshan, Shenzhen, Nanchang and Nanjing.
With Shanghai as headquarter of Sanofi China R&D and Asia Pacific R&D Hub, Sanofi's capabilities span the entire R&D value chain from drug target identification to late-stage clinical studies. Sanofi focuses on China and Asia Pacific's unmet medical needs, such as liver diseases, diabetes, oncology and cardiovascular diseases.
For more information, please visit www.sanofi.cn.
Sanofi Forward-Looking Statements
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[1] Prof. Ning Guang, JAMA study, 2013;310(9):948-958
[2] Report on cardiovascular diseases in China (2014)
