Tackling NCDs through innovation AND collaboration

Every year, 41 million people die from non-communicable diseases (NCDs), contributing to nearly 71% of the world’s total deaths annually. These are also known as “chronic diseases”, ie. non-contagious sicknesses like diabetes, stroke and cancer. NCDs disproportionately affect low and middle-income countries due to limited access to healthcare services, and have become a significant medical, humanitarian and socio-economic issue. These are staggering numbers and immense challenges.

“NCDs account for 85 percent of premature deaths in low- and middle-income countries. The health consequences are bad enough. The financial consequences can be devastating. Every year, millions of people who live in poverty are exposed to severe financial hardship, as a result of out-of-pocket costs to manage NCDs. Families are faced with decisions that no family should ever be, like whether to buy food or medicine.”

WHO Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at the World Health Summit 2022

As a family-owned business focused on addressing unmet health needs and improving the quality of life for our patients worldwide, we have a firm commitment to the management of NCDs, see here. Rapid innovation, which delivers value for patients, health systems and society is one part of the solution. The second important part is an approach which focuses on enabling holistic health solutions through collaboration: achieving better and more sustainable solutions often requires a combined effort from companies like ours, but also governments, public health bodies, scientific communities, etc. We are optimistic that more health for more people can be achieved through collaboration and have committed to expanding access to healthcare for 50 million people in vulnerable communities.

The challenge of tackling NCDs is an integral part of our MORE HEALTH pillar — one of three pillars embedded into our “Sustainable Development for Generations” framework and in line with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Specifically, SDG 3.4 sets a target of reducing premature deaths due to NCDs by one third by 2030. We have committed to investing €35 billion in health innovations to tackle NCD’s and expanding access to healthcare for 50 million people in vulnerable communities by 2030. Concrete initiatives implemented to help achieve these objectives include:

The Defeat NCD Partnership

Boehringer Ingelheim joined Defeat NCD in 2019

Boehringer Ingelheim has been a contributing member to the Defeat NCD Partnership since 2019, and we are already seeing concrete and tangible results of this collaboration in Rwanda, The Gambia, and Ecuador. The partnership aims to enable and support lower-income and lesser developed countries to scale-up sustained action against NCDs to increase levels of prevention and treatment across borders, through a holistic and collaborative effort.

Did you know?
On October 16th, Carinne Brouillon, our Head of Human Pharma, spoke at the World Health Summit 2022 on a panel entitled “From Words to Actions for Better Non-Communicable Disease Outcomes”, alongside WHO Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, health ministers from India and Qatar and other high-ranking personalities from the healthcare space to discuss how we can take action against NCDs. Re-watch the panel discussion on Youtube, or read t he full event description on the WHS website.

Making More Health

Initiated in 2010 in collaboration with Ashoka, the largest global network of social entrepreneurs, it aims to improve healthcare for both humans and animals in vulnerable communities around the globe by connecting innovative social entrepreneurs with business expertise. One of the key programs is the “Business Accelerator”, which supports social entrepreneurs in Sub-Saharan Africa. The program’s holistic approach to NCD management provides in-depth care: from education and awareness through treatment and rehabilitation, as well as financial means, technical expertise and management skills to enable social entrepreneurs to scale-up and sustain their business models. Additionally, we train community health workers on lifestyle management for NCD prevention (i.e., nutrition, exercise and basic monitoring of blood sugar levels and blood pressure).

Indigenous Communities

PATHWAYS is part of Boehringer Ingelheim’s ongoing mission to improve healthcare in vulnerable communities. It focuses on Canada’s Indigenous communities which are burdened with two-to-five times the national rates of chronic diseases. Over the last few years, Boehringer Ingelheim Canada has collaborated with Bimaadzwin, an Indigenous consulting firm, to create an Indigenous Health Framework, known as PATHWAYS. The Indigenous-led and Indigenous-informed initiative aims to close the gap in Indigenous healthcare disparities, improve health outcomes and advance general wellness through sustainable resources and programs. With these resources, the Indigenous Peoples of Canada can explore Indigenous-led approaches to providing care as well as proactively managing and decreasing chronic illnesses, such as diabetes and COPD, within their communities. Pathways aims to impact the lives of over 20,000 people, initially.

PATHWAYS pilot participant Paul San, a member of the Ahousaht First Nation, and Rachel Dickens, who works as registered dietitians and certified diabetes educators within the Nuu-chah-nulth community.

Another program helped vulnerable communities in New Zealand with more equitable access to new type 2 diabetes (T2D) medication. Due to the prevalence of T2D in Māori and Pasifika people being twice as high as other ethnicities in New Zealand, we joined forces with the national Pharmaceutical Management Agency, and key stakeholders to prioritize inclusion of ethnicity as a criteria for T2D medicine access. This positive outcome enabled approximately 25,000 patients of Māori and Pasifika ethnicity to receive this effective medication within the first 12 months. Supported with a multi-lingual engagement and awareness campaign in partnership with Pacific Media Network, we were able to educate and support the community holistically.

The UK Clean Air Initiative

Posters like this are distributed throughout the UK

Addresses poor air quality in the UK, a contributing factor to different NCD health issues: currently, 30% of preventable deaths are connected to air pollution. This insight was the driver behind initiating conversations with Global Action Plan (GAP) - the UK’s leading campaigners on air pollution and National Health Service’s (NHS) sustainability pioneers Newcastle Hospitals to explore how to join forces. After nine months of research and consultation with the NHS’s Integrated Care Systems (ICS - aimed to provide improved, holistic health and social care), Boehringer Ingelheim UK collaborated to help form the ICS Clean Air Framework, an innovative tool to empower every ICS in England to become a “Clean Air Champion”. The aim is to have all ICSs on board by 2025. To learn more, see here or watch the video . There is a clear need for urgent action, as today the air quality around almost every hospital in England breaches World Health Organisation standards.

Supported by Newcastle Hospitals, the NHS Foundation Trust and Boehringer Ingelheim, the Integrated Care for Cleaner Air initiative has been established to improve air quality around every healthcare facility in England.

Boehringer Ingelheim purposefully follows a two-pronged approach of “Value through Innovation” and “Health Through Collaboration”. As Carinne Brouillon shared at the recent World Health Summit, “Science and technology can’t solve all the challenges on its own around NCDs. It is collaboration between businesses, researchers, regulators, policy makers, etc… [Together] we can make a real impact on health systems and people. After all, we all want the same thing. Together, we can fulfill the aim to deliver a better health for all.”