IQVIA fights cancer with charity run

"Through joint efforts, we hope someday cancer will be viewed as curable as a bad cold," said Brian Mi, president of IQVIA China, at the launch ceremony of the 3rd IQVIA "Joy Run" activity held in the riverside area of the World Expo Park in Shanghai on May 17.

Nearly 300 running enthusiasts from Shanghai competed in either the 5km or 10km race in the afternoon. Notably, among them were 26 members of the Shanghai Cancer Recovery Club, an NGO that consists of thousands of Shanghai residents who are suffering from cancer or have recovered from the serious disease. Every one of these club members successfully completed the race.

IQVIA, formerly Quintiles and IMS Health, is an American multinational that provides biopharmaceutical development and commercial outsourcing services. One of the world’s largest contract research organizations (CRO), IQVIA was ranked 305th on the 2017 Fortune 500 list. IQVIA opened its Chinese subsidiary that conducts clinical trials for healthcare companies back in 1997.

It was the third year for IQVIA China to host the "Joy Run" activity. The previous venue was Olympic Forest Park in Beijing. The charity run is aimed at promoting a healthy lifestyle and a positive mindset for cancer prevention and treatment.

This year, IQVIA partnered with the Shanghai Cancer Recovery Club to organize the event. The staff of IQVIA also sold their personal belongings on site and donated the sales revenue to the club.

According to the latest statistics from the National Center for Cancer Registration (NCCR), during 2015, the total cancer morbidity in China was 3.92 million cases and the death toll was 2.33 million, which means that each minute 7.5 Chinese citizens were diagnosed with cancer and 4.4 died from the illness. The city of Shanghai alone witnesses more than 100 deaths from cancer every day, as the data from the Shanghai Anticancer Association shows.

"Specializing in clinical-trials services that take a new medicine from its conception to receiving marketing approval, IQVIA China has been accelerating the entry of cancer drugs into the Chinese market," Mi said.

"In the past, it often took seven years to introduce a foreign medicine into China. In view of the recent progress of drug reviews in China, I am confident that the one-year review period will become a new normal in the near future," Mi added.