Spreading HOPE: Teva’s Work to Improve Global Access to Medicine

October 02, 2023

“There is a massive childhood cancer challenge in Africa. To put it in perspective; in the U.S. there are 15,000 childhood cancers annually and around 80% survive 01. In Sub-Saharan Africa there are 100,000 childhood cancers annually and 90% die 02. Global HOPE was developed to address the inequity and this unacceptable situation.”
Dr David G Poplack, Director of Global Hematology Oncology Paediatric Excellence (HOPE)

Dr David G Poplack is internationally recognized as a leader in the field of pediatric oncology who launched Global HOPE in 2016 from Texas Children’s Hospital, the largest children’s hospital in the US. The program has had a life-changing impact in reducing child cancer deaths in Sub-Saharan Africa and its vital partnership with Teva is helping to get medicines where they are needed.

Teva fireside chat with Teva Global Head of ESG and Global HOPE Director

In early 2020, Teva partnered with Global HOPE and Direct Relief to help provide access to medications for children with cancer and blood disorders in sub-Saharan Africa.

Amalia Adler-Waxman, Teva Senior Vice President, Global Head Environment, Social & Governance (ESG): Tell us a little bit more about this amazing program, about Global HOPE. What is it? What is it aiming to do…?

David G Poplack, MD, Director Global Hematology-Oncology Pediatric Excellence (HOPE), Texas Children’s Hospital: Global HOPE is an initiative to dramatically improve survival rates for children with cancer in Sub-Saharan Africa. There's a terrible inequity in the survival of children with cancer, where as shown on the left of this slide in the US, in Western Europe, also in Israel over 80% of children with cancer survive. But in contrast, if you look on the right, in Sub-Saharan Africa, there are a hundred thousand cases of pediatric cancer annually, and 90% of these children die. So when we learned of this horrendous inequity we developed Global HOPE to address this unacceptable situation.

Amalia: Why did you approach Teva? Why did you decide to pursue the idea of working with Teva? Partnering with Teva?

David: So Teva of course, became a very important partner to help us provide drug access. We started this partnership, which has really blossomed and been absolutely a wonderful partnership, not only for us, but most importantly for the kids. This is all about the kids. If you've not been to Africa and not been to some of these under-resourced systems, it's really difficult to imagine how problematic healthcare is in these settings and all of those things that may be natural for us to expect in our countries, which are higher resourced are just not present in the settings. So we have to help provide them. And that's where partnering with Teva has made it possible for doctors, but nurses, pharmacists, that we have training to provide the standard care that's necessary to improve survival rates.

Amalia: That's amazing. How would you see this program progressing for Global HOPE and for the partnership with Teva?

David: We're looking forward to expansion. I've seen a lot in the field of pediatric cancer over the many years, but of all the things I've engaged in, this particular program, Global HOPE and our partnership and access with Teva has the greatest potential medical impact of anything that I've ever done.

Teva has long worked to provide solutions for vulnerable populations who do not have the means or the access to reasonable levels of healthcare and medicine. In 2022, Teva donated $699.6 million worth of medicines (533.7 million units) to patients in need.

And our ambition is growing. In 2021, we announced goals to increase access to our medicines, which are integrated into our corporate strategy, with certain critical targets linked to executive compensation. We have implemented seven access to medicines programs to date. Through these programs, we provide treatments to patients who wouldn’t otherwise have access to them, including in low and middle-income countries.

The Global HOPE program has taken a three-pronged approach:

Building capacity by training doctors, nurses and health care professionals (HCPs)
Enhancing access to essential medicines
Improving paediatric healthcare facilities

To date, Global HOPE has reached over 17,500 children in sub-Saharan Africa and trained more than 6,300 healthcare workers, including 26 pediatric hematologist oncologist physician specialists, and 100 specialized pediatric oncology nurses. These Global HOPE Fellow graduates are now leading care in 12 centers across six countries.

“We started in Botswana, Malawi and Uganda, but are training people from many different places in these sites and they are returning to their own countries and setting up pediatric oncology departments there.”

The Teva partnership came about when Dr Poplack discovered that Teva provides 70% of the medicines that are needed to provide support for children with cancer. A meeting at the UN General Assembly on NCDs in 2018 was effective in starting the relationship. Dr Poplack says:

“I’ve seen a lot in terms of pediatric cancer over many years but of all the things I’ve been involved in throughout my career, Global HOPE and this partnership with Teva has the greatest potential medical impact of anything I’ve ever done. There is much we can do together to save many thousands of lives.”

Teva’s donation, part of our commitment to increasing access to medicines, will support treatment plans for almost 73% of Global HOPE’s chemotherapy patients. In 2020, we supplied 15 different medicine types to the region, including chemotherapy support, anti-infection, anti-fungal and hormone therapy. In 2021 we added 13 new products to the list, to make a total of 28. These medicines are manufactured at Teva sites in the US, Israel, India and Europe.

To date, Teva has supplied approximately 25 different medicine types to the regions, including chemotherapy support and antibiotics. The Teva partnership also has the potential to help with medicine management, which is a vital skill in programs like this.

“Training for pharmacists and pharmacy staff is very important as in many countries they don’t know how to handle these medicines,” explains Dr Poplack. “This is a critical barrier to access and there is a real opportunity to leverage Teva’s expertise to help people on the ground with inventory management, supply chain and quality control. We need to train them to ensure the drug donations are handled, stored and used properly.”

Dr Poplack also pays tribute to the fact that donations continued and deliveries were made successfully to the regions throughout the entire COVID-19 pandemic. Across Teva, teams mobilized quickly to assure essential medicines and supplies continued to reach patients, even as we experienced one of the greatest health challenges of our time.

Now Dr Poplack is looking forward to the continued expansion of the program in its second year.

“If we’re able to improve survival by 40%, that means 40,000 children per year will be saved. It’s an amazing statistic. Our partnership with Teva in the coming years will save many hundreds of thousands of children with cancer.”