What The Ebola Crisis Can Teach Us About Healthcare Cost-Reduction

From The April 2016 Issue
Sanofi EVP Weighs In On The Politics Of Drug Pricing

In the article “Sanofi EVP Weighs In On The Politics Of Drug Pricing” Suresh Kumar posits that the challenges of drug pricing and containing healthcare costs can’t be solved without one key element — a diverse coalition. The EVP of external affairs at Sanofi has seen how such a group can affect a global issue. As an example, he talks about what he learned when he chaired a panel on Ebola at Davos (i.e., the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting held in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland) in 2015.

The panel included the following experts from a variety of organizations that had to come together — quickly — to solve the Ebola outbreak:

• David Nabarro, who was then the Ebola czar for the United Nations
• Seth Berkley, CEO of the Global Alliance for Vaccine Innovation (GAVI)
• Elhadj As Sy, Secretary General of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, whose people were handling 70 percent of all the Ebola dead bodies
• Hans Roseling, cofounder of Gapminder, who was leading the site on the ground in Liberia
• Paul Stoffel, CSO of Johnson & Johnson

In addition, Kumar cites how important it was that the WHO, the White House, and David Cameron’s [UK Prime Minister] staff worked together in helping to foster the creation of three Ebola vaccine candidates.

Through his experience with this Ebola panel he learned how impactful such a diverse coalition can be to a global problem. “Bringing different stakeholders together with divergent points of view is critical to gaining a common understanding so you can move things forward,” he analogizes.