How have been your experiences while working in India so far ?
The experiences have been good . Personally , I am very happy ( smiles ). Great to see progress on our key reach out projects . The Lilly NCD Partnership has continuously shown positive outcomes . The Project Uday has been another project of importance . The data on diabetes among rural population as well as urban is available . Some of the interventions have been already tested to check whether things are working . We will be sharing the same with the concerned authorities in the government as well .
Have the changes been implemented in places where it matters ?
We don ’ t implement ourselves . The idea is to do research and present the report . We developed best practices which were taken into consideration by authorities . Besides we have also seen that whatever we developed got eventually implemented . Similarly , under Project Uday , we made educational training manual and the government seemed interested . We saw the interventions and the implementation on the larger scale . The people , government and industry will be part of the results . Putting aggregate of all the efforts is difficult at this moment .
For Uday project , we will share the data on intervention . We expect to see the results in next two years . It is relatively easer as it is our own project . At NCD Summit , we have gathered some data and you will see the 15 percent of overall work so far . We are tracking the progress and in next two years , we will be able to aggregate most of data and put some tangible results in public domain .
There are many elusive challenges for NCDs in India . How do you look at that ?
While the challenges remain , there is good progress on education and prevention of diabetes and other non-communicable diseases . These efforts matter too as it is not always money that should be a priority on any organization ’ s list . We believe awareness about diets and lifestyle changes can help too . Government and lot of NGOs too are doing their bid in this direction .
What are the challenges that have been faced by the NCD Lilly Partnership while reaching out to marginal population ??
First thing was to get the attention towards noncommunication diseases . But now it is well
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Presence of lot of undiagnosed people is a major issue that requires attention . So the challenge is to identify such population and prevent NCDs . To diagnose , we require more equipment in public health sector .
recognized fact that it is an important area to be addressed . That has happened as everybody is investing in this area .
Presence of lot of undiagnosed people is a major issue that requires attention . So , the challenge is to identify such population and prevent NCDs . To diagnose , we require more equipment in public health sector . There are some basic things at fundamental level that can make difference . Of course , it is complimented by the rise of options for treatment . New portfolios are coming up . We have invested in the maternal and child health curriculum too .
India is being called the diabetes capital of the world . How are you boosting your portfolio to match the requirement ?
That is what we are doing as Insulin is our forte . We plan to strengthen our diabetes product portfolio till 2018 . Besides injections for diabetes patients , we provide education for would be patients . Therefore , information from our side is not always product related but awareness is our priority too . It is making a big difference already . Our educator program through its comprehensive and sustainable approach provides counseling on diabetes , nutrition and lifestyle management . We also teach appropriate ways to use Lilly injectable devices prescribed by treating physician .
Apart from being the leader in Insulin market , are you planning to expand your horizons in India ?
If you look at our global portfolio , we have products across the table . Apart from Insulin , we could launch 20 new products globally . Most of them would be landing in India . We have products in diabetes and oncology . We will be launching products in our segments such as gastric cancer , rheumatoid arthritis , psoriasis etc . These are some core areas where product pipeline is in the phase I and II . For India , we have global products .
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