BMS invests $15 million in Asian diabetes programme
pharmafile | June 11, 2012 | News story | Sales and Marketing | Asia, BMS, China, India, Onglyza, diabetes
Bristol-Myers Squibb has invested $15 million into its ‘Together on Diabetes’ campaign in India and China.
Together on Diabetes is a five-year, $115 million initiative by the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation to improve health outcomes of adults living with type II diabetes in the US, China and India.
Today’s announcement sees the firm giving the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention $709,016 over three years, to enhance the capacity of rural healthcare providers to manage and prevent type II diabetes.
This will be specifically aimed at the village level in Western China, where diabetes is growing faster than in China’s cities, and where rising medical costs are an important factor leading to poverty.
BMS is also giving the Shanghai Charity Foundation just over half a million dollars, again over three years, to create an efficient and effective community-based approach for managing type II diabetes in Shanghai, a city comprising 23 million people.
A recent survey conducted by the Shanghai Center for Disease Control shows the prevalence of type II diabetes in Shanghai reached 16% last year, more than 6 percentage points above the national average, and nearly 5 percentage points higher than other Chinese cities.
BMS said it initiative is designed to help patients self-manage their disease whilst also increasing community-based support services.
Diabetes prevalence in Asia
Diabetes a growing problem in southeast Asia, and both and India and China represent new and potentially lucrative markets for firms focusing on diabetes, given that both countries have a combined population of 2.5 billion.
There are currently around 250 million diabetic patients worldwide, but this figure is set to rise to 380 million by 2025.
The condition is seen as such a threat to public health, it is sometimes labelled a global ‘pandemic’ – and the biggest growth area in diabetes is expected to come from south east Asia.
But BMS is not a firm established in diabetes – with Novo Nordisk, Sanofi, Merck and Lilly enjoying more success with their blockbuster ranges of insulin and anti-diabetic drugs.
Lilly and Sanofi already have a big presence in the region, with Lilly recently announcing a new R&D diabetes centre focused in China.
BMS’ biggest diabetes treatment is the type II drug Onglyza, which it markets with AstraZeneca – BMS took home $433 million from the drug in 2011, with AZ taking $211 million.
But these sales are far less than the $3 billion Merck’s type II pill Januvia brought in last year, or the $1 billion brought in by Novo’s GLP-1 drug Victoza, despite only being on the market since 2010.
BMS will hope that it can generate greater market penetration with its new initiative, and increase sales of Onglyza in the region.
Ben Adams
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