Medical companies collaborate with health care authorities at CIIE

Multinational medical companies reached collaborations with local healthcare authorities, medical associations and businesses at the 6th China International Import Expo to play up their respective advantages to make further contributions to building an innovative healthcare ecosystem for the country.

EssilorLuxottica, which specializes in eyecare and eyewear, announced five collaborations with its local ecosystem partners, including China National Academy of Educational Sciences, China Optometric and Optical Association (COOA), and China National Inspection and Testing Center for Ophthalmic Optics Glass and Enamel Products, aiming to enhance consumers' awareness of proactive eye health management.

"The number and intensity of strategic collaborations initiated at CIIE this year mark a record high for us. With these in place, we hope to boost the development of the industry and bring high-quality vision care services to more people," said Kok Leong Lim, head of professional solutions at EssilorLuxottica Greater China.

Over at the booth of Roche, it launched an initiative by joining hands with stakeholders, including the Chinese Red Cross Foundation and local patient service platform Medi Cover, to provide support from physical, financial and psychological dimensions for children with hemophilia and their families.

For example, Medi Cover introduced a patient welfare program to greatly reduce patients' financial burdens and improve the accessibility and affordability of innovative drugs through commercial insurance.

Hemophilia, an inherited blood clotting disorder, afflicts about 136,000 individuals in China. The disease can lead to permanent joint damage, disability and other serious consequences.

Roche also initiated a new ecological model for cancer diagnosis and treatment by joining hands with local stakeholders, including hospitals, to better put patients at the center of medical care.

As innovative subcutaneous injections for some types of breast cancer patients have reduced the infusion time from several hours at a time in traditional treatment to about five minutes, it becomes possible for patients' normal life and work not to be interrupted by treatment, said the company.

Tianjin Medical University Cancer Hospital has taken the lead to build an outpatient convenient injection center as a new, humanized medical service model, which also reasonably allocates medical diagnosis and treatment resources.

Also at CIIE, GSK signed a memorandum of understanding with the China Association of Health Promotion and Education to jointly raise women's awareness of cervical cancer prevention and control. They will start from the major communities in cities and extend such health knowledge to grassroot levels.

Experts pointed out that the most direct way to prevent cervical cancer is with a HPV vaccination. However, the accumulated estimated HPV vaccination rate of women aged between 9 and 45 from 2018 to 2020 was only about 2 percent.