Realising the promise of personalised healthcare: Launching the Personalised Health Index in Asia-Pacific

I’m pleased to finally be able to share the joint efforts of our partnership with the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies – and a panel of 15 leading public health experts across APAC. Today, we are proud to launch the Personalised Health Index for Asia-Pacific, the first-of-its-kind policy tool that measures the readiness of 11 countries across the region to adopt personalised healthcare (PHC). 

The Index is the latest step in a journey we began together in 2018 as part of the FutureProofing Healthcare initiative. When Roche established this initiative, we knew healthcare was reaching a turning point, driven by three seismic shifts. Healthcare data had started to reach enormous scale – with our ability to analyse it growing exponentially. At the same time, digital technologies were riding a wave of innovation, and a radical new understanding of the interplay of biology and genomics was growing within the scientific community and beyond.

These three trends came together to accelerate the momentum behind personalised healthcare (PHC). But why is that important, especially now? PHC not only offers a way of keeping millions of people in better health for longer, it can do the same for health systems around the world. PHC can fortify health systems against not only today's challenges, but those in the years and decades to come.

One of the great strengths of personalised healthcare is that, by marshalling a wide range of robust, reliable data, it gives stakeholders the tools to make smarter decisions. And that is exactly what the Index aims to do.

In creating the Index, we wanted to shine a spotlight on just how prepared countries in the region are to adopt PHC, and unpack their unique strengths and challenges. By making that data publicly available, we can give healthcare decision-makers the information they need to drive advances in personalised medicine, learn from each other and develop strategies they need for the future. They can use this data to help prioritise their resources, achieve better health for their populations, and improve patient outcomes.

I am so encouraged to see that every country included in the Index is already making its own individual progress towards realising #PersonalisedHealthcare, and that the technological foundations needed to power this new model are already largely in place. Of course, there are areas that need strengthening if countries are to fully achieve the whole range of benefits that PHC offers. In particular, the Index highlights that countries will need to address and prioritise development of PHC policies and frameworks to accelerate adoption.

I believe that the combination of rapid technological innovation, systemic changes in our healthcare systems and the impact of COVID means we cannot afford to stand still. We know that healthcare systems need to adapt to meet the needs of the populations that depend on it. I am convinced PHC will be crucial to facilitating that evolution. Every country's journey to PHC will be different, but we believe the Index can help provide a roadmap for each of them, acting as a key for the region's stakeholders to unlock the potential this tailored healthcare approach offers.

We hope that by sharing this digital policy tool freely online, we can help ignite discussions across the region and jumpstart the action plans that will help move PHC from vision to reality. I believe a future of personalised healthcare has become an attainable and vital way forward for our region. 

Explore the Index to find out more.

#FutureProofAsiaPacific 

Jeremy Lim Nares Damrongchai Leanne Raven Professor Maude Phipps Ikeda Sadakatsu Krishna Reddy Nallamalla Chai Chuah Herawati Sudoyo Tony Estrella Dr Churn-Shiouh Gau Professor John Lim