Responding to the rising needs of Filipino Patients, two healthcare ecosystem leaders with the shared vision of catalyzing impactful changes in cancer care collaborated through a first-of-its-kind network-wide partnership.
Roche (Philippines) Inc. Pharmaceuticals Division General Manager Dr. Diana M. Edralin, Roche Philippines Patient Journey Chapter Lead (PJCL) Mr. Raymon Cayabyab, Ayala Healthcare Holdings, Inc. (AC Health) president and CEO/ Healthway Medical Network (HMN) Chairman Paolo Borromeo, and HMN President & Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Jimmy Ysmael signed a joint Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) recently in a ceremony at the soon-to-be-inaugurated 15,000 sqm Cancer Care Hospital in Taguig.
“As we seal our partnership with Roche to be our catalyst for transformative healthcare, we also reaffirm our commitment to providing access to Filipinos to healthcare and to life-saving medicines. With cancer being one of the top causes of morbidity in the country, we are highlighting it as one of the focal points of our Connected Care Circles (CCCs), HMN’s innovative model of care, which latches on the network’s capability of delivering high-quality and connected healthcare services to patients through a multidisciplinary healthcare team, ensuring coordinated care throughout the patient journey,” said HMN President & CEO Jimmy Ysmael.
Roche (Philippines) Inc. is an affiliate of Roche, one of the world’s largest biotech companies with innovative solutions in the following focus areas: cardiometabolic diseases, hematology, infectious diseases, inflammatory bowel diseases, neuroscience, oncology, ophthalmology, rare diseases, respiratory and women’s health.
Healthway Medical Network (HMN) is wholly owned by the Ayala Corporation under Ayala Healthcare Holdings, Inc. (AC Health), delivering healthcare through various formats across the country. With a patient base of 3 million, HMN provides integrated services across the full continuum of care through its 12 outpatient centers, four (4) full-service general hospitals, one (1) surgery center, and over 200 corporate clinics nationwide, and its upcoming cancer hospital, slated to open later this year.
The groundbreaking partnership enables sustainable and patient-centric advancement of cancer healthcare services to Filipino patients through Roche’s innovative solutions, transformational healthcare expertise, and HMN’s country-wide network.
“We are proud to partner with Roche, one of the leading pharmaceutical companies in the oncology space. Via the Roche Access Program (RAP) Plus initiative, access to Roche’s oncology medications will now be extended to the entire Healthway Medical Network patient base, starting with four (4) general hospitals, ambulatory surgical center, and of course, our Healthway Cancer Care Hospital,” AC Health President & CEO Paolo Borromeo said.
RAP Plus is Roche’s patient support program in recognition of the predominantly out-of-pocket Philippine healthcare setting to help ease the burden of cancer patients through financial assistance, pharmacy services support, and transport services. RAP Plus’ availability in HMN facilities nationwide will also help patients eliminate additional treatment costs since they do not have to travel outside of their provinces in order to receive treatment.
“Today marks an important milestone in the history of caring for cancer patients in our country as Healthway and Roche formalize this partnership. This unique landmark alliance will bring advanced and high-quality cancer services closer to Filipinos. Through your state-of-the-art healthcare facilities and access centers and our different patient support programs and initiatives, we are positive that we will help bring equal opportunity to these services, whether executives in a city or farmers in the countryside, ” Roche General Manager Dr. Diana Edralin said.
The partnership will also kick off Roche and HMN’s mutual health-system shaping goals, such as helping with the capability of healthcare professionals (HCPs) in managing cancer patients, improving early cancer detection with screening and diagnostic programs, disease awareness and education campaigns, supporting public and/or private institution reimbursement or payment coverage for diagnosis and innovative treatment of cancer, and empowering patients and providing end-to-end innovative solutions throughout their cancer patient journey.
With the critical transformational initiatives stemming from the alliance of these forward-thinking institutions, Filipino patients from all over the country can look forward to a more unified patient referral pathway with improved access to high-quality, innovative medical care.