2023 was a year unlike any other at the Novartis Foundation

As we come to the end of the year, more and more reflection posts will make it to our social media feeds. And whilst I’ve always enjoyed learning about others’ achievements, I never felt an urge to share such a review myself. Yet, 2023 was a year unlike any other for us at the Novartis Foundation .

Our work aims to create greater health equity for as many people as possible, focusing on cardiovascular disease (CVD), the leading cause of disability and death worldwide. That’s why the Novartis Foundation is collaborating with authorities and partners to design and implement population health roadmaps in cities around the globe. We are supporting a paradigm shift from healthcare to health; away from our current, reactive care systems towards predictive, proactive, and preventative health systems that keep people healthy. This takes focus, courage, dedication, and patience.

As a result, our team has spent these past years investing in our programs, forging cross-sectoral partnerships, collaborating with city authorities, understanding local priorities, convening global expertise, and diving into available data and cardiovascular (CV) research, disseminating the outcome, impact and efficiency results of our urban population health initiatives.

2023 milestones: Our population health initiatives

Early on, the Novartis Foundation tapped into global trends and identified how technology and artificial intelligence (AI) could narrow health inequities and help progress understanding what truly drives health in large populations. Our legacy population health initiative CARDIO4Cities used data to guide real-time intervention planning, while our newest program, AI4HealthyCities uses advanced analytics on existing datasets from different sectors to decipher the true drivers of CV health and inequities. Our HealthTech Hub Africa in Kigali, Rwanda on the other hand, acts as an accelerator supporting local entrepreneurs from all over the continent to strengthen their HealthTech solutions and business plans.

CARDIO4Cities

CARDIO4Cities is an urban population health approach based on multisectoral partnerships, data-driven decision making and local ownership. The three pioneering cities that validated the approach – Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia; Dakar, Senegal; and S?o Paulo, Brazil – have seen dramatic improvements in overall CV risk reduction. Specifically measured in terms of hypertension control, the approach proved to be rapidly successful and tripling blood pressure control levels in one to two years of implementation. That translated into a reduction of up to 13% of stroke and 12% of heart attacks in the city populations, whilst being highly cost-effective for health budget owners. These findings incentivize both early detection, often organized in a proactive way, and data-driven decision making to shift reactive care systems to the proactive state. The third main paper on CARDIO4Cities provided the impact and cost effectiveness results of the approach and was published in PLOS Global Public Health .

Following this success, the Novartis Foundation decided to spin off the CARDIO4Cities approach in a standalone organization, the CARDIO4Cities Accelerator , as a neutral broker between governments, funders and investors, and implementing partners. Launched at the World Health Assembly in May, the Accelerator aims at replicating CARDIO4Cities in 30 cities within 3 years and will initially be hosted under the umbrella of IntraHealth International . Novartis became the first company to pledge resources to the Accelerator by seconding Aldina Aljuki? as a leader to set up the new organization.

AI4HealthyCities

It is known that only 20% of our health outcomes are shaped by the healthcare we access; the other 80% is linked to the conditions in which we grow, live, work and age[I]. Along with Microsoft AI for Health, local city authorities and health and research partners such as Weill Cornell Medicine and 美国纽约大学 School of Global Public Health, AI4HealthyCities focuses on deciphering what truly drives our health. By utilizing advanced analytics and AI, we can analyze existing health data and social determinants of health (SDoH) data to identify socio-economic, environmental, cultural, digital, political or behavioral factors that drive better CV health.

New York city was the first city to launch the program in September 2022, and in 2023 we received tremendous traction from the partners in the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene under the leadership of Ashwin Vasan . His recently launched #HealthyNYC initiative aims to raise average life expectancy to 83 by 2030 for all New Yorkers, and we hope to contribute substantially to this endeavor with AI4HealthyCities. ?

Next cities now enrolled in AI4HealthyCities are Singapore, Helsinki, Finland, and Basel, Switzerland. We furthermore launched a Global AI4HealthyCities Expert Council with a kickoff meeting in New York beginning of December. The Council helps us to interpret findings from AI4HealthyCities and turn them into population health roadmaps with actual interventions, to ultimately design a new paradigm for equitable population health.

Health Tech Hub Africa

2023 was also the year where the HealthTech Hub Africa (HTHA), our HealthTech accelerator in Kigali, Rwanda, continued its mission to support entrepreneurs from across 17 African countries. In the last 1.5 years, the HTHA has touched the lives of 2.35 million beneficiaries, raised an extra USD 18 million in funding, and created over 830 new jobs on the continent. Not only does the Hub support the needs of local entrepreneurs, but it also engages in the need of policy makers by co-designing with local governments a blueprint for fast-tracking HealthTech innovations in public health systems. An Intergovernmental Working Group was created to develop this blueprint, championed by the governments of Rwanda, Senegal, Kenya, Cameroon, and Nigeria, and with support from the African Development Bank and other partners.

An important acknowledgement for the HealthTech Hub as a positive catalyst for change was when the received the US Department of State Award for most impactful public private partnership (P3 award) in New York at the Concordia summit during the United Nations Global Assembly in September 2023. This award recognizes leading public-private partnerships that improve communities and the world. Lastly, the Hub’s Cardiovascular Play4Health Challenge this summer highlighted the requirements and design principles HealthTech innovations need to address CV health for school children, based on our earlier experience through the Kazibantu project in South Africa. And in October, the Hub’s annual investor summit in Kigali emphasized the crucial role governments and the private sector have in supporting countries with equitable, inclusive, and sustainable health systems.

2023 highlights: Convenings and moments

Throughout 2023, the Novartis Foundation had several impactful moments to fortify our stance on how technology and data can improve population health and narrow health inequities. Here’s a selection of memorable 2023 moments from our team.

• During the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in January, we organized the WEF Affiliated Session on the "Future of Health: Unlocking the power of data to improve urban health" , hosting a panel discussion that emphasized the crucial role of data in shaping the future of health and care, engaging stakeholders across sectors and industries.

• Besides highlighting the Novartis Foundation's initiatives on CV health and data at the World Heart Summit as well as publishing the first-ever World Heart Report by the World Heart Federation 's World Heart Observatory ,?the World Health Assembly (WHA) in May was also the place where we launched the CARDIO4Cities Accelerator, underlining the Novartis Foundation's dedication to population health impact.

• In August, I had the privilege of participating in the Novartis Live.Magazine’s podcast “How’s your job?” , highlighting the Foundation's commitment to exploring the power of data and technology, while sharing stories from my earlier carrier as a medical doctor in emergency situations.

• In September, we acted as the head sponsor of the Intelligent Health AI conference. The Foundation’s team organized several workshops and delivered impactful talks, harnessing the potential of digital technologies, data and AI to transform population health.
• ?At the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in September we hosted the AI for Healthy Cities event with Foreign Policy , where discussions delved into how a population’s heart health can benefit from connecting large sets of existing data and applying advanced analytics and AI.

• In November, the Handelskammer beider Basel brought the Life Sciences Cluster Basel annual forum to the Novartis Campus. Our Head of Data, Analytics and AI, Peter Speyer , and myself had the pleasure of meeting Swiss Federal President Alain Berset , and spoke to a much-needed wave of innovation powered by data and digital to future-proof the Swiss health system.

• And finally, at the beginning of December, our year culminated with a keynote address towards an audience of international regulators at the European Medicines Agency ’s?(EMA) Big Data Forum, contributing to the conversation about weighing opportunities and risks associated with deploying technology and advanced analytics in the field of health and care.

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What it takes and what’s ahead

All 2023 efforts in progressing the Novartis Foundation’s mission and goals would not have been possible without our partners and colleagues within and outside 诺华 and Novartis Global Health . It is their support and contributions that I wish to acknowledge with deep gratitude. We are proud to collaborate with you at the forefront of these vital efforts and are looking forward to continuing to do so in 2024.

The biggest shout out goes to my team at the Novartis Foundation for their incredible engagement: Elizabeth Adamson , Sarah Des Rosiers , Cristina Haffner , Lucy Setian , Johannes Boch , Helge Buess and Peter Speyer . I feel lucky to lead a group of such professional, experienced, and dedicated people, and am very proud of all of them for what they achieve together. I could not have asked for a better team and cannot wait to see what else we will make happen!

As 2024 approaches, anticipated trends in healthcare include the continued growth of AI in both generative and analytical capacities and a more significant shift towards preventative healthcare[II]. We at the Novartis Foundation are poised to embrace these trends, building on the successes of 2023.

Thank you for your continued interest in our work at the Novartis Foundation. I wish you a restful holiday break and all the best for 2024.

Sincerely,

Ann

References

[I] Hood, C. M., K. P. Gennuso, G. R. Swain, and B. B. Catlin. 2016. County health rankings: Relationships between determinant factors and health outcomes.

[II] Marr, B. (2023, October 3). The 10 Biggest Trends Revolutionizing Healthcare In 2024. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2023/10/03/the-10-biggest-trends-revolutionizing-healthcare-in-2024/

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