Despite the remarkable medical progress during the last century, there are still at least 400 million people worldwide who lack access to essential health services1 and more than two billion who cannot afford to buy the medicines they need2. A healthy life, unfortunately, is still far from a given for too many. Every year, eight million people die from cancer3 and 14 million new cases are diagnosed4. Nearly 10 million people develop tuberculosis (TB) annually, including one million children, and the disease claims 1.5 million victims per year5. Nearly half a million people still die of malaria every year6.
As a division of the Novartis Group, Sandoz is committed to playing a key role in achieving global healthcare goals, by pioneering new approaches to drive increased access worldwide. Increasing access to medicine is the basis of our day-to-day business model, but we also run a range of targeted programs to ensure access for those most in need.
On the following pages, we explain more about the work we do and the programs we run.