Overseeing Novartis AG’s oncology business across the AMACO (Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa Countries) region, which comes with strikingly diverse healthcare systems, is likely highly demanding even in normal times, especially as new individualized treatments such as Kymriah (tisagenlecleucel) require sophisticated manufacturing and supply chain processes alongside navigating complex pricing and access issues.
Are there region-specific R&D initiatives being pursued by Novartis given the alarming statistics in areas like lung, breast, and stomach cancers in Asia?
Bouchard: Over 70% of the world’s population lives in our region and over half of cancer incidences are from this region. There are certain types of cancers more prevalent here, such as pre-menopausal breast cancer, EGFR-mutated lung cancer, liver cancer, gastric cancer and nasopharyngeal cancer. In order to deliver on rising patient needs, we have globally-integrated programs and world class cancer centers that are regionally led.
Our R&D Center in Shanghai [China] is part of our global program and is one of the key R&D sites for Novartis globally, drawing on our global knowledge and resources to develop innovative cancer treatments that address regional patient needs. We are driving a range of preclinical and translational research project collaborations with different academic centers across China, Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore, Australia, Japan and Taiwan. In fact, we have a program called StAR [Strategy for Asian Region] with efforts from all of us in Novartis along with these academic investigators to really address Asian cancer patient needs.
Collaboration is critical in helping us understand where the unmet patient needs are, and we have a range of partnerships with stakeholders across the public and private sectors to help us identify gaps and respond appropriately with regionally targeted clinical programs. Over the years, we have also established platforms like the Novartis Asia Pacific Clinical Development Advisory Board (APECHO) to engage medical experts in Asia to uncover opportunities where Novartis and academic institutions/investigators can work together to address unmet medical needs in field of oncology and hematology and how they dovetail with our pipeline and research.
For example, in our MONALEESA-7 study on breast cancer (an idea generated from APECHO), clinical research uncovered the effectiveness of Kisqali combined with endocrine therapy for pre-menopausal breast cancer populations, where more than 50% of breast cancer incidences in Asia occur in pre-menopausal women
Cut to the early pandemic period and the "difficulty level," if one were to borrow gaming jargon, simply skyrocketed almost overnight across multiple operational
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