QUESTIONSANDANSWERS DR
MICHAEL HEUER
President of Europe, Middle East, Africa and Latin America at Roche Diagnostics
As personalised healthcare is becoming a buzzword in the industry, Roche Diagnostics is spearheading the development in this relatively new field. We spoke to Dr Michael Heuer about Roche’s commitment to personalised healthcare and their long-term plans for the Middle East market.
Q: Last year we spoke about Roche’s involvement with personalised healthcare. Can you tell us about the advancement that Roche has made in this area? A: Last year we spoke about the HER-2 test and Herceptin to treat women with HER-2 positive breast cancer as probably the most well-known example of personalised healthcare, which are offered by Roche as a combination of diagnostics and therapy from one supplier. In 2011, we were very successful in introducing Zelboraf, which is very effective in treating metastatic malignant melanoma. We found that the patients that benefit from this type of therapy have a certain BRAFmutation. We launched a new diagnostic product on the back of this new therapy – The BRAF V600 mutation test, a breakthrough for this type of disease treatment. We got the FDA approval in the summer of 2011 and today a lot of people are benefitting from this new personalised healthcare initiative, demonstrating another good example of personalised healthcare put in to practice.
Q: Why does Roche believe so strongly in personalised healthcare? A: We believe that in certain disease areas that, so far, haven’t been able to be treated very well, we can make a better selection based on the molecular and genetic profile of a particular patient. The therapy is more effective and beneficial to the patient, as you can select the patients according to how they are going to react to a treatment, therefore avoiding treating patients that won’t benefit nor respond to a specific treatment. This is good for the patient, it’s good for the physician and it reduces the burden of cost for the healthcare system. These new selective therapies used to treat some very difficult diseases are costly, therefore you want to fit the therapy exactly to the patient and avoid the more traditional approach of ‘one treatment fits all’. In many oncological diseases, we see that therapies may only be helping 20-30% of the patients. Imagine a woman with breast cancer who would be treated with Herceptin without selection according to her HER2 profile - 80% of women will be receiving therapy that is of no benefit at all. Not only
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is this costly, but we’re also losing precious time in the treatment of the patient as much time is spent on administering the wrong treatment. At the end of the day, it’s spending the limited amount of resources in the healthcare system where it’s needed most.
Q: How important is the market in this region for Roche? A: The Middle East market is one of our main focus areas. The development over the last few years has proven that our decision to invest more efforts and resources into supporting the Arab Health Exhibition was a very good decision. Due to the importance of this market, we have decided to increase our position and resources with our newly opened Dubai-based Management Centre for Diagnostics. We take this very seriously and with a long-term perspective of investing even more in this market. With our new centre we can be closer to our local partners and customers to ensure that the quality of our service and that the logistics of our business continues to improve.
Q: How do you see the development of the medical laboratory industry in the Middle East and what’s your role in that? A: From our perspective, we want to double our business over the next few years, as we have done in the past. We can see that the clinical laboratory segment will continue to grow here in the Arab region. It will probably grow much faster than in other regions in the world, with the exemption of for example China. We are here with a long-term intent to supply high quality products with the highest level of customer care and logistics by being where our customers are. Our motto here at Arab Health is ‘Dream Lab’, where we, in conjunction with our customers, can create and tailor platforms and laboratory layout according to each individual lab’s needs and budget, in order to achieve optimal workflow. We want to be the benchmark in service quality and we will continue to invest in service infrastructure to ensure that our customers are always satisfied with what we have to offer.
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