Access to Healthcare

The greatest contribution Roche can make to society is to continue developing innovative medicines and diagnostics that respond to medical needs, as well as save and improve quality of life. But for many reasons, not everyone has equal access to healthcare. Some patients are able to live longer, healthier lives than others with the same disease because the same level of medical care is not available in all countries – often because of cost or lack of infrastructure.

The development and improvement in the provision of healthcare is the responsibility of governments, however, the healthcare sector can contribute through a number of mechanisms. Healthcare resources and needs vary widely from country to country and cannot be provided for with a single approach. Roche has developed different strategies and programmes for improving global access, reflecting the needs of the different regions and providing benefits to the country.

In the world’s poorest countries, there is a critical lack of even the most basic healthcare. This makes treating serious diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis an enormous challenge. We work in partnership with governments and local partners to provide sustainable healthcare for the people most affected by disease, by:

• Increasing education, knowledge and technical expertise
• Developing and implementing patent and pricing policies that increase access.

Even in the developed world, access for patients to innovative medicines varies between countries. This is due to many factors, such as lack of reimbursement of these products, public health funding failing to keep pace with the burden of the disease, lack of payment by insurance companies, through to lack of medical insurance in general. We support a number of initiatives that help provide healthcare to those in need.

In addition, we work closely with governments and payers to demonstrate the value of our products and services to patients, society and healthcare systems.