The crucial role that diagnostics play in the healthcare ecosystem

It’s difficult to understate the importance of in vitro diagnostics (IVD) in the healthcare ecosystem.

Reportedly, 70 per cent of all healthcare decisions are based on the outcome of the sound diagnostic results. Yet, diagnostics account for only 2 per cent of global healthcare funding.

With the aim to shine a spotlight on diagnostics, Roche Diagnostics became the first in vitro diagnostics company to establish its regional headquarters in the Middle East.

“Roche Diagnostics Middle East is a cluster of 16 different countries. We have the management centre in the UAE. We have 500 employees who want to make a difference to the quality of life of patients,” says Guido Sander, general manager of Roche Diagnostics Middle East.

A robust diagnostics outcome enables healthcare professionals to detect the risk of disease, predict how it may progress and enable the right treatment decision to be made at the earliest. “Diagnostics plays a fundamental role whether it’s early on in the process where we’re talking about screening of potential risk groups, or later on in the process when we’re talking about treatments and monitoring,” notes Sander.

He says that the pandemic has only reiterated the role of diagnostics in healthcare. “The pandemic has shown us how important healthcare is to any solid society. It underlined how valuable dialogue between the different stakeholders in the system are – we’re talking about patients, providers, physicians, us as an industry and also the authorities. This profound dialogue we’re having with stakeholders enables us to bring out the innovation we have as quickly as possible. In the context of the pandemic, we were able to bring out a number of solutions in front of the patients as a result of this dialogue,” says Sander.

Roche is a 125-year-old company and it is leveraging that experience to foster dialogue within the region, including through its participation in Expo 2020 Dubai. It used the platform to spark an exchange of ideas not only on diagnostics procedures and technologies, but on the idea of value-based healthcare. Says Sander, “We [recently] talked about value-based healthcare with the different stakeholders in the UAE system at Expo 2020 Dubai. It is important that we jointly think about what is driving the patients, what is the kind of information we need, and what are the processes we need to drive them in the direction of value-based healthcare.”

As Sander explains, Roche who is celebrating its 125^th anniversary through the theme of “Celebrate Life”, aims to be an inclusive company that encourages stakeholders to share their insights and collectively further diagnostics and advancements in healthcare in a region where it hasn’t entirely happened until now. “Hopefully, at some point, we will be beyond the pandemic status, driving to endemic, and there are a lot of other diseases that need our attention. What it needs is continuous dialogue with stakeholders, commitment to drive the discussion around value-based healthcare and there are a lot of interesting projects here in the Middle East. Roche is a combination of experience in diagnostics, but we also cover the pharmaceutical arm. The combination of these two experiences allows us to make an extremely important contribution to the healthcare system.

“Healthcare systems are developing and there is a need to look into new areas – especially the areas of data management, information systems and how we use that data to make healthcare decisions. We are engaging with external stakeholders like the government, insurers, to make sure we address those needs in the Middle East.”

To know more about Roche Diagnostics Middle East FZCO, click here