By Satish Kanady
DOHA: The global life science company Sanofi is all set to reinforce its presence in Qatar. The French pharma major will work to strengthen Qatar’s healthcare infrastructure in the management of communicable and non-communicable diseases.
Talking to The Peninsula, Jean-Paul Scheuer (pictured), Country Chair and General Manager for Sanofi Gulf said Sanofi’s partnership with Qatar will help bring innovation in Qatar’s health sector and improve patients’ access to quality treatment. “With the changing demographic patterns and growing life-style ailments across the region, Qatar is committed to provide quality facilities in the healthcare sector. We see huge opportunities in this country,” he said.
“We at Sanofi, are proud to explore partnership opportunities with Qatar Ministry of Public Health and the French Republic’s Embassy in Qatar, with the ultimate objective of improving access to quality healthcare and supporting the people that we serve through continuum of care. As global leaders in therapeutic solutions for diabetes care, human vaccines, consumer healthcare and rare diseases, we are committed to supporting Qatar, and the region as a whole in enabling the delivery of better patient outcomes”.
Education and information prgramme for patients are important part of modern treatment. Hence, education is one of the key components of our new partnership with Qatar. This is just one project, our intention is just to start with this broaden partnership again to non communication disease and like diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.
Jean-Paul said the innovations Sanofi has developed along the way has had a profound effect, particularly in the developing world. It has developed the first vaccine for the dengue virus, which infects 390 million people each year, and whose range is expanding due to climate change. Since the beginning of the year, first vaccinations campaigns have started in the Philippines. “Thanks to systematic vaccination campaigns, we are close to eradicating polio; while over the last decade, sleeping sickness treatments have saved more than 180,000 lives. In addition, we provide innovative treatments for diabetes and cardiovascular diseases,” he said.
In 2015, Sanofi launched three pioneer treatments: Toujeo (insulin glargine 300 U/ml) in diabetes, Praluent (alirocumb) against hypercholesterolemia and dengvaxia, the first-ever vaccine against dengue fever. Some of these products are expected to hit the Qatari market by the end of this year. “We expect to have three more major launches by 2020 in the field of asthma and atopic dermatitis (duilumab), rheumatoid arthiritis (sarilumab), and diabetes (Lixilan)”, he said.
Jean-Paul joined Sanofi in 2008 as General Manager for Ukraine. Under his leadership, Sanofi Ukraine consolidated, solidified and further expanded the business in a highly challenging business landscape, while ensuring organisational continuity and growth.
Jean-Paul is a member of the board of the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine (ACC). Since 2014 he has been serving as a treasurer for the ACC Executive Board of the Chamber.In 2011-2012, he was elected as Chairman for the board of the Association of Pharmaceutical Research and Development (APRaD) in Ukraine.
The Peninsula
