Medical Platform

-Social issue that we address in the Medical Platform Business

Low availability of medicines and medical devices, and inadequate quality of medical care in APAC

Each country in APAC has different medical systems, regulations, languages, cultures, and social customs, and they are small markets with the exception of a few countries such as China, India, and Japan. Therefore, there are high entry barriers to medical-related companies such as pharmaceutical companies in each country. As a result, we are facing a social issue, that is, low availability of medicines/medical devices and inadequate quality of medical care, even by global standards.

For example, while health expenditures as a ratio of GDP exceed 10% in the U.S., the U.K., and Japan, almost all countries in Southeast Asia, as well as China and India, remain at the low level of 6% or less. In terms of average life expectancy, Japan leads the world with 84 years, while Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, India, the Philippines, and Myanmar all have life expectancies of less than 75 years.

Especially in the pharmaceutical industry, there are only a few countries in the world that are able to discover and develop new medicines, as it requires extremely advanced technologies. The U.S., European countries, and Japan account for the majority of new medicine development, while other pharmaceutical companies headquartered in APAC countries specialize only in generic medicine development. In order to improve the quality of medical care in APAC countries, it is important to support the activities of a wide range of pharmaceutical companies around the world, from new medicine development companies to generic medicine companies, and to rapidly disseminate medicines to each country.

The availability of medicines and medical devices should be enhanced in a way that ensures patient safety, but there is still room for improvement in medical safety in some regions of APAC. For example, when prescribing medicines, doctors and pharmacists have to check a broad range of matters, such as whether or not there are any problems when taking multiple medicines or which medicines they can prescribe for a particular allergy that the patient has. Essentially, it is necessary to ensure that there are no problems with the prescriptions by referring to the drug database each time or integrating it into the electronic medical record system. However, there are only a limited number of healthcare institutions in APAC that conduct exhaustive checks. In addition, due to the lack of up-to-date medical information in some Southeast Asian countries, it is not easy for healthcare professionals to acquire sufficient knowledge and skills to improve the safety of medical care.

We would like to solve such social issues in APAC by realizing the following mission.

- Mission of the Medical Platform Business

We aim to contribute to realizing healthy and high-quality lives by improving the availability and safety of medical care in APAC.

- Strategy for realizing the mission

Development of a medical platform

In our Medical Platform Business, we provide a medical platform optimized for each APAC country that connects medical-related companies*1 and healthcare professionals*2. We contribute to the marketing activities of medical-related companies around the world by utilizing our membership base of healthcare professionals in APAC. We expand our membership base of healthcare professionals and enhance their engagement by providing localized valuable information, thereby making the marketing activities of medical-related companies more effective and efficient.

For example, we create medical content for the promotion of new products and disease awareness by medical-related companies and provide summaries of medication package inserts as approved by the government in each APAC country in books and online. Since the names of medicines may differ from country to country and may have different approved indications, we provide healthcare professionals with information localized for each country. In addition to the information contained in the package inserts, we provide a number of verification logic data, regarding mixing medications, allergy checks, etc., by integrating such data into the information systems of hospitals, clinics, and pharmacies.

We also focus on efforts to support healthcare professionals in acquiring specialized skills by providing educational content on medicines, medical devices, diseases, diagnosis, and treatment in the form of articles and videos.

By providing this information through the multiple channels of print, real-world, and digital, we are expanding and enhancing the engagement of the membership bases of healthcare professionals on the medical platform, and supporting more effective and efficient marketing activities for medical-related companies by leveraging our ability to reach to a wide range of healthcare professionals.

• *1: Pharmaceutical companies, medical device manufacturers, other healthcare manufacturers, industry associations (doctor/academy), government agencies, etc.
• *2: Doctors, dentists, pharmacists, and nurses, including students and key opinion leaders.

Maximizing value as a medical platform by increasing the number of clients and engaging healthcare professionals

In order to realize the mission of our Medical Platform Business, which is to "improve the availability and safety of medical care in APAC," it is necessary to provide value to medical-related companies and healthcare professionals through our medical platform.

We need to have a detailed understanding of the medicines, medical devices, and related information held by medical-related companies around the world, which are the primary sources of such information, as well as of their issues related to marketing and medical communication. For this reason, we provide services across multiple countries to help solve the issues faced by medical-related companies, while expanding the scope of our services to a broader range of industries and business types, from pharmaceutical companies to medical device manufacturers, other healthcare manufacturers, government agencies, and industry associations (1), and increasing the number of clients in each industry and business type (2).

By expanding the types of localized information provided to healthcare professionals in APAC and increasing its quality and quantity (3), we expand the membership bases of healthcare professionals and enhance their engagement on the platform (4). This enables us to solve the marketing issues of medical-related companies more effectively. Furthermore, we analyze and leverage the accumulated data on healthcare professionals, medicines, medical devices, and patients to develop new services and improve existing services (5), thereby maximizing the value provided through the medical platform.

- The future we are aiming for in the Medical Platform Business

Improving people’s lives

By realizing the mission of our Medical Platform Business, we will contribute to solving the social issue: "low availability of medicines and medical devices, and inadequate quality of medical care in APAC."

Through the medical platform we provide, medical-related companies can disseminate medicines and medical devices in APAC in a way that ensures patient safety. Healthcare professionals can have access to more medical treatment options by learning about the many high-quality medicines and medical devices available. They can also improve specialized knowledge and skills related to medicines, medical devices, and associated diseases and treatments, thereby correctly prescribing medicines and using medical devices. Through these efforts, they will be able to provide high-quality medical care.

By improving the availability and safety of medical care through highly specialized healthcare professionals, patients as end users will be able to enjoy high-quality medical care services and live with peace of mind.

In this way, we will contribute to promoting improvements in the availability and safety of medical care in APAC, thereby improving people's quality of life.