Johnson & Johnson has announced its global public health strategy at the opening of its on-the-ground global public health operations in Cape Town, South Africa. Through this global strategy, Johnson & Johnson will mobilize its global public health capabilities and resources behind a unified, multidisciplinary effort to deliver a sustainable, measurable impact against significant public health needs. The initial implementation of the strategy starts with this new site in Africa and will focus on three core areas: HIV, tuberculosis (TB), and maternal, newborn and child health. The company plans to expand its focus areas to address other unmet global health needs and its geographic reach.

Johnson & Johnson's global public health (GPH) Africa operations team, along with representatives from across its family of companies, will translate the strategy into locally executable programs that drive health impact in collaboration with local health delivery partners. The company's GPH strategy will use an end-to-end approach, which includes early-stage disease-specific research, product development, manufacturing and distribution, and education and training resources through its philanthropic efforts. It also will leverage insights and expert capabilities from within its consumer, medical device and pharmaceutical businesses to support a network of local partnerships. Business development teams from Johnson & Johnson companies also will collaborate with African academic centers and entrepreneurs to set up incubation facilities to enable local medical-based start-up companies to conduct their business.

“This is a model based on innovation, collaboration, and local empowerment that aims to address life threatening issues and deliver measurable results to improve outcomes for patients, families and communities, first across Africa, and more globally in the longer term,” said Paul Stoffels, M.D., chief scientific officer and worldwide chairman, pharmaceuticals, Johnson & Johnson. “By directly engaging with and empowering researchers and the healthcare community across South Africa, we will be better able to direct our resources and advance innovations that can lead to greater impact. We think this can work anywhere in the world, but our urgency right now has to be in Africa because of the patients' needs.”

The operations expand upon the company's legacy and presence in Africa, which began in 1936, and brings additional investments to the more than 1,500 employees and three manufacturing sites within the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies, which are already present on the continent. Global public health satellite offices in Kenya and Ghana are planned to follow later this year.

Some key parts of the initiative include the following: are outlined below

Janssen Pharmaceutica NV has entered into a collaboration with the University of Cape Town's Drug Discovery and Development Center (H3D), an integrated drug discovery and development center in Africa.

Johnson & Johnson Innovation, JLABS teams will provide local incubators ongoing mentoring support to foster the growth of the community of entrepreneurs developing new health ventures in the region. The engagement will follow the model used by Johnson & Johnson Innovation LLC to provide R&D, product development, and commercialization, legal and investment guidance to entrepreneurs and start-ups so that they may focus on achieving scientific advances.

With the goal of developing a cure for hepatitis B, Janssen Sciences Ireland UC is collaborating with the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa to explore the delivery of hepatitis B-targeted transcription activator–like effector nucleases (TALENs) using viral and non-viral vectors.

Janssen will provide in-country consumer insights, expertise and financial resources in South Africa and nine other sub-Saharan countries to support a suite of programs focused on empowering adolescent girls, ensuring improved access to treatment and prevention options, and creating supporting communities. Johnson & Johnson has joined other major partners in the Dreams Partnership, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Girl Effect.

Johnson & Johnson (Pty.) Ltd., the Johnson & Johnson Corporate Citizenship Trust, and other Johnson & Johnson companies in South Africa are partnering with Unjani Clinics NPC to help strengthen health systems in vulnerable districts by investing to increase vital training and business resources to nurses as well as expanding access to affordable primary health care services. The initial investment focuses on 19 clinics, with plans to scale to 50 clinics nationwide by 2018.

Source: Johnson & Johnson