Health equity

Addressing health equity is core to our mission to improve outcomes for patients. As an industry, we have a responsibility to put more focus on previously overlooked patient populations to create a healthier future for everyone. At Roche, we continue to increase diverse patient representation in clinical trials and diversify the healthcare data used to develop medicines and diagnostic solutions.

Patients around the world experience healthcare very differently – both in the medicines and diagnostic solutions they can access and the efficacy of those solutions. Health inequities exist everywhere. They affect all patient populations and are driven by factors like income, gender, ethnicity and socioeconomic position.

Health inequity is a systemic problem that requires a holistic solution. That’s why we consider health equity at every stage of the pharmaceutical and diagnostic product life cycle and throughout the patient journey. 

We align both our strategic roadmaps and our commercial strategies toward supporting health equity efforts.

Inclusive research is vital to understanding how diseases, pharmaceuticals and diagnostics impact diverse groups of people.

Supported by external guidelines, we have built inclusive research principles into every part of our organisation – both functionally and throughout the development life cycle. This includes our early- and late-stage studies, our governance decisions within our clinical development process (e.g. in-study design), our operational systems (e.g. data-driven site selection focused on under-represented patient demographics) and with our global site alliance partnership (including in the U.S. and South Africa).

Undoing large-scale health disparities requires collaboration. Our work to improve health equity can only be successful if we engage and involve the communities we have identified that will benefit most from our efforts. We focus on building relationships with underrepresented communities to improve their access to healthcare.

Communities in low- and lower-middle-income countries (LLMICs) are often underrepresented in medical research and lack equitable access to healthcare. Roche is working to build relationships with these communities to help address these needs. For example, our long-standing partnership withhelps improve access to cancer care in countries where essential services are limited. Beyond funding, the partnership provides technical guidance and strategic advice, building on our combined expertise in local health systems.

Collaborating with diverse stakeholders is one of the most effective ways to create breakthroughs that improve health outcomes. Our Mission Leapfrog initiative is aimed at transforming patient wellbeing and population health in Asia by partnering with people across the region to support healthcare improvements.