Meeting in Mumbai for our GLOBALHealthPR APAC Regional Planning Workshop 2019
We are excited to join our partners in Mumbai, India today for our annual GLOBALHealthPR Asia-Pacific (APAC) Regional Planning Workshop.
Over the ensuing two days (November 20 – 21), we will share market-specific insights, explore communication challenges, discuss opportunities for new business development and formulate collaborative strategies to best fulfill our APAC clientele’s communication requirements.
Our India partner, MediaMedic Communications, is playing host to our Regional Planning workshop. Attending workshop partners and co-facilitators include our own GLOBALHealthPR Chair, Jonathon Wilson, and President, Tim Goddard, Emma Thompson from Spurwing Communications, Singapore, and John Wong from Madison Communications, Hong Kong and China.
Principal and co-owner of VIVA! Communications, Kirsten Bruce, will kick off our workshop today with an examination of the APAC region and its emerging trends in the health, wellness and digital arenas.
With an estimated population of 4.3 billion, equating to 60 per cent of the world’s population – and 65 million babies born each year – APAC represents one of the world’s largest and fastest growing regions. Conversely, APAC also boasts the world’s most rapidly aging population. By 2050, more than a quarter of the region’s population will be aged over 60 years.
This aging population, coupled with increasing urbanisation and a more sedentary lifestyle, is fuelling the region’s heavy disease burden. China and India alone share a staggering 42 per cent of the global disease burden of Type 2 diabetes, while the broader region currently carries two-thirds of the global disease burden for major chronic diseases, such as COPD, asthma and lung cancer.
APAC is a region of vast contrasts. Its markets vary substantially in per capita healthcare expenditure, ranging from USD 98 in Laos, to USD 4,357, and provide their respective populations with inconsistent access to basic sanitation services. As an example, less than one in five Papua New Guinean and Solomon Islands residents have access to basic sanitation.
Yet, the region has booming pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors, which are expected to generate almost one-third of the region’s healthcare revenue this year. APAC is also in the grip of extensive digital transformation, with a touted 15 per cent increase in digital technology investments, including digital pathology, electronic health records and clinical trial e-platforms, worth approximately US $13 billion in 2019 alone.
Over the next two days we will be collaborating with our partners to explore this fabulous region, and its similarities, contradictions, trends and plentiful opportunities.
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To learn more about GLOBALHealthPR – the largest independent health and science communications agency partnership worldwide, get in touch with us.
Authored by Kirsten Bruce, Principal and Co-owner of Asia-Pacific Hub, VIVA! Communications.