With the recent development of an app that allows doctors and health care providers located anywhere in the country to coordinate better with the St. Luke’s Medical Center Foundation, cancer patients now have better chances of surviving the dreaded disease.
Gabriel Georgy, president and chief executive officer of Takeda Healthcare Philippines Inc., and Gordon Cameron, vice president for Asia Pacific Area of Takeda Pharmaceuticals Inc., revealed this development during the Philippine Cancer Summit last Feb. 8.
“Filipino patients don’t have to come to the city to be diagnosed,” Georgy said. “The doctor or the health care provider in the province would only open our app on their phone, send a request to the pathology department at St. Luke’s in Global City, and then St. Luke’s will, in turn, send the doctor the testing kit and all the instructions and everything they need to do. This will be sent back to the hospital and analyzed. The results will be sent back to the doctor.”
With the summit’s theme, “Access to Innovative Medicine,” the organizers said they have narrowed their focus to “cancer targeted therapy,” which means high-tech”‹ medicine th”‹at specifically targets cancer cells.
“We are committed to bringing”‹ more innovative drugs to Filipino patients,” Cameron said.
The development of the app was a result of the Takeda Digital Healthcare Innovation Challenge that the pharmaceutical company carried out in cooperation with TechTalks.ph last year.
Takeda Healthcare Philippines Inc. is a subsidiary of Takeda Pharmaceuticals Company Ltd. of Japan, which imports pharmaceutical products in finished and semi-finished form and provides patients in the Philippines with innovative medicines for gastroenterology, cardiology, oncology and women’s health.
“The whole i dea of the summit was for us to”‹ talk “‹and”‹ deliberate on how we can best overcome the challenges faced by Filipino patients. Some of these challenges are poor infrastructure, and inability to access health care providers especially in the provinces,” Georgy pointed out.