The global burden of disease is growing at an exponential rate, with healthcare systems increasingly struggling to provide the care that patients with chronic and rare diseases or cancer need. In response, AstraZeneca is driving forward on a mission to partner with governments, healthcare systems and providers all over world, with an aim to ensure millions more people have access to guideline-directed care.
Healthcare systems are in crisis
Today, an estimated three billion people are living with chronic disease, rare disease and cancer.1-5 Cardiovascular (CV), respiratory and cancer-related deaths are on the rise and life expectancy in many developed countries is shortening.6-9 This is exacerbated by an ageing population where more people are living longer with multiple conditions,10 diagnosis often occurs when it’s too late, and medicines that prevent disease progression are not utilised to their full potential.
As a result, healthcare systems across the world are struggling to cope with the demands being placed on them. The pathways between primary and secondary care within most systems are fragmented, and the care provided is reactive. This is making us over-dependent on emergency services and hospital-based care, with a pattern of sub-optimal treatment, disease progression, unplanned hospital admissions and premature death for millions of people every year.
A mission to find, diagnose and treat MILLIONS more patients, building resilient healthcare systems of the future
We are working in partnership with governments, health systems and healthcare professionals to tackle these issues head-on.
- Finding, diagnosing and treating more patients: Galvanising the potential of new, simple and affordable technologies and interventions that can be used in the community setting, we are working with healthcare professionals and entire systems to proactively identify and diagnose those at risk.
- Ensuring more patients are receiving optimal care: To address the increasing complexity and number of guidelines available to a time-poor clinical community, we are partnering with healthcare systems on solutions that aim to simplify decision making and make it easier to follow evidence-based clinical guidelines in all primary and secondary care settings.
- Advancing specialist care pathways: Working with healthcare systems to design more seamless, integrated care pathways between primary and secondary care, including auto-referral processes for high-risk patients, optimisation of in-hospital, discharge & follow-up protocols and systems, and building world-class diagnostic Centres of Excellence.
- Supporting the case for a more proactive and sustainable healthcare delivery model: Collaborating with governments, policymakers and stakeholders across the healthcare ecosystem, including global initiatives such as the Partnership for Health System Sustainability & Resilience (PHSSR)*, the International Respiratory Coalition** and the Lung Cancer Policy Network***, with a goal to improve global health based on the evidence of benefits to health systems, economies and societies.
With our areas of expertise uniquely aligned to most healthcare systems’ top priorities right now – including preventing cardiovascular, respiratory and cancer-related death, reducing over-reliance on emergency services and improving health equity – we are in a strong position to partner with healthcare stakeholders around the world to support the adoption of guideline-directed medical therapy. We have demonstrated time and time again, that when we work together to proactively identify, diagnose and optimally treat at-risk patients, we can meaningfully reduce the progression of disease, keep people out of hospital, and help give back years of life to millions.
Actionable steps to Transform Care
Through our transformative partnerships with healthcare systems from over 40 countries, AstraZeneca’s practice-changing initiatives have already enabled millions more people to gain access to guideline-directed care.
All around the world there are examples of healthcare systems struggling to address the huge burden of chronic diseases, rare diseases and cancer, exacerbated by infectious diseases which can lead to more severe infection in patients with underlying conditions. At AstraZeneca, we have an extraordinary opportunity to make a positive impact on public health globally: by considering the whole patient, we are able to both treat and prevent disease, leveraging our footprint and established partnerships to improve health system capacity and sustainability.
We are in a golden age of cancer drug discovery – both in the speed at which new therapeutics are being developed and their potential to revolutionise cancer care. However, barriers in clinical practice can result in some patients not being able to benefit from the innovation. We believe collaboration is critical to address such barriers which is why we are committed to working in partnership with healthcare professionals, medical societies and healthcare systems around the world to accelerate the adoption of clinical decision support tools with the aim of accelerating the adoption of guideline-directed care. Through collaboration and adoption of support tools, it is our ambition to help the oncology clinical community reach 90% guideline-concordant care in high prevalence cancers by 2030.
Our ambition is to continue building on these efforts, supporting health systems to diagnose and optimally treat an additional 25 million more people by 2030.
In doing so, our goal is to make a significant and positive impact on the global burden of disease, and help healthcare systems to become more resilient for future generations – delivering better outcomes for all, in partnership.
*The Partnership for Health System Sustainability and Resilience (PHSSR) is a non-profit, multi-country, cross-sector collaboration launched in 2020 by the London School of Economics (LSE), the World Economic Forum (WEF) and AstraZeneca, with a unified goal to improve global health by building more sustainable and resilient health systems. AstraZeneca is a founding partner.
** The International Respiratory Coalition is coordinated by the European Respiratory Society, in partnership with the Global Allergy & Airways Patient Platform, AstraZeneca, Amgen and other organisations with an interest in respiratory health. Each partner will provide funding or contributions of time and expertise to deliver the aims of the Coalition at a global or national level.
*** The Lung Cancer Policy Network is a global network of multidisciplinary experts from across the lung cancer community, which includes clinicians, researchers, patient organisations and industry partners. The Network is funded by AstraZeneca, Bristol Myers Squibb Foundation, Guardant Health, Intuitive, Johnson & Johnson, MSD and Siemens Healthineers. Secretariat is provided by The Health Policy Partnership, an independent health research and policy consultancy. All Network outputs are non-promotional, evidence based and shaped by the members, who provide their time for free.
References
1. British Heart Foundation Global Heart & Circulatory Diseases Factsheet
2. Global burden of chronic respiratory diseases and risk factors, 1990–2019: an update from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019. GBD 2019 Chronic Respiratory Diseases Collaborators. EClinicalMedicine
3. Chew NWS et al. The global burden of metabolic disease: Data from 2000 to 2019. Cell Metab. 2023 Mar 7;35(3):414-428.e3. doi: 10.1016/j.cmet.2023.02.003
4. Our World in Data – The Global Burden of Cancer
5. The landscape for rare diseases in 2024. Lancet (2024)
6. Hacker, Karen. “The Burden of Chronic Disease.” Mayo Clinic proceedings. Innovations, quality & outcomes vol. 8,1 112-119. 20 Jan. 2024, doi:10.1016/j.mayocpiqo.2023.08.005
7. Global cancer burden growing, amidst mounting need for services. World Health Organization. www.who.int/news/item/01-02-2024-global-cancer-burden-growing--amidst-mounting-need-for-services
8. Global burden of chronic respiratory diseases and risk factors, 1990–2019: an update from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019. Momtazmanesh, Sara et al. eClinicalMedicine, Volume 59, 101936
9. GHE: Life expectancy and healthy life expectancy. World Health Organization. www.who.int/data/gho/data/themes/mortality-and-global-health-estimates/ghe-life-expectancy-and-healthy-life-expectancy
10. Global and regional prevalence of multimorbidity in the adult population in community settings: a systematic review and meta-analysis Chowdhury, Saifur Rahman et al. eClinicalMedicine, Volume 57, 101860
Veeva ID: Z4-69391
Date of preparation: November 2024