AstraZeneca's chairman is optimistic about China's healthcare market

The global, science-led biopharmaceutical Business, AstraZeneca, is optimistic about its Business going forward, according to its chairman Leif Johansson. On the sideline of the CHINA Development forum, he shared insights on the development of CHINA's healthcare sector.

Johansson said he sees opportunities in CHINA as the country is making efforts to approve more drugs.

"All of those are good things. But on top of that, we see a country which has now the speed of approving drugs, making them available in the Chinese market, different from before."

"And we also see the focus on 'healthy CHINA 2030' with lots of emphases on quality, plus the fact that access comes out to a much bigger part of the population. And of course, all of those are external factors. That makes me optimistic about our Business in general," he added.

CGTN's anchor Cheng Lei with AstraZeneca chairman Leif Johansson, March 23, 2019. /CGTN Photo

Leif Johansson also shared his view on digital healthcare which the company is working on, and said being patient-centric is important.

"We started by being patient-centric. Then we look at how can we actually deal with the patient best," Johansson explained, "And the chest pain project is one of those where we can actually follow a patient all the way from the first feelings of chest pain through the ambulance, through the emergency room, and even into the operating table. And we can then connect all of that in such a seamless way that from the patient's point of view, we can get that patient into treatment much quicker, and therefore, with much better forecast."

As AstraZeneca has a research center in Wuxi, Johansson said that, with the help of the local government, they can connect almost everything: "If you think about that combination, that means we can store a lot of patient data. We can even derived medicines out of that patient data. We can provide telemedicine out into rural areas, connecting specialists into a center, and therefore get much better primary care experience out in the areas around big cities."

As for the influence of Brexit on drug supplies and the company's long-term strategy in the UK, the CEO said there may be different disturbances in a short term, but he remains optimistic.

"I see no sense at all in the UK that they do not want to be part of the overall global economy. I think there will be a lot of development in their relationships with other countries, CHINA included."