Roland Sackers, CFO and Managing Director | September 22, 2022

The Virtuous Circle: Business and Global Health

Being a good corporate citizen is no longer a “nice-to-have” for any business worldwide. Long gone are the days when companies could “do good, and talk about it,” often in terms of philanthropy and public relations campaigns. No disclosures, no metrics, no information on compliance.

Today, a wide range of stakeholders – above all current and prospective investors as well as employees – routinely scrutinize how companies are living up to their Environmental, Social, Corporate Governance (ESG) ambitions. That means providing extensive proof points, and ones that are increasingly required to be vetted by third-party groups, as to how their business strategies and operations reflect and impact real-world issues.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, corporate investment had largely moved away from funding R&D for intractable (the so-called “forgotten” or “neglected”) killers like malaria, antimicrobial resistance and tuberculosis (TB). High regulatory burdens, weak healthcare infrastructure in low-resource settings and low ROI had made these endeavors increasingly unsustainable.

As Sally Davies, then the UK’s Chief Medical Officer, explained back in 2019: “We desperately need new antibiotics, diagnostics and alternative treatments. There is a ‘market failure’ so companies are disinvesting as the current model of payment does not marry up with the complex nature of resistance.”

Roland Sackers joined QIAGEN in 1999 and has been Chief Financial Officer since 2004. Prior to joining QIAGEN, he acted as an auditor with Arthur Andersen, where he successfully supported several IPOs in the biotech and broadcasting industries. Roland earned his Masters Degree in Business Administration (Diplom-Kaufmann) from the University of Münster, Germany.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, corporate investment had largely moved away from funding R&D for intractable killers like malaria, antimicrobial resistance and tuberculosis.

Out of sight, out of mind?

TB has long been the world’s most lethal infectious disease, killing more than one million people every year. That horrible impact continues today, but has been overshadowed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that reduced access to TB diagnosis and treatment in the face of the pandemic actually caused TB deaths to increase for the first time in more than a decade (WHO Global Tuberculosis Report 2021.)

While global funding for TB research hit $915 million in 2020, that’s less than half the annual goal set by UN member states in 2018, according to the Treatment Action Group (TAG) and Stop TB Partnership. “Investments from governments, philanthropies and pharmaceutical companies have remained flat since 2018, which contrasts dramatically with their historic mobilization of resources against COVID-19,” TAG noted in presenting the report Tuberculosis Research Funding Trends, 2005-2020.

QIAGEN is among the companies actively exploring new models to make sustainable investments in global health such as “cost-plus,” where companies transparently price products for use in low-resource settings at a concessional level just above cost. This model widens access and increases affordability while unlocking potential new markets, at a margin that still ensures companies have the ability to reinvest into future innovative R&D to expand assays, reach more people, tackle more diseases – and above all, save more lives. Showing that this virtuous circle model works, helps us lead by example and stimulate more private-sector investment in resource-limited settings.

Women covering her face with pollution mask

QIAGEN’s Global Public Health Task Force develops far-reaching initiatives in deep collaboration with R&D teams. An example involves QIAGEN’s longstanding commitment and contribution to the global fight against TB. To date, more than 100 million QIAGEN QuantiFERON-TB tests have been made available in more than 130 countries and have been incorporated into many national TB strategies.

QIAGEN is among the companies actively exploring new models to make sustainable investments in global health.

Keeping everybody in the cycle

Companies have long engaged with governments, health authorities and civil society organizations on ways to improve access to health care. The challenge today, especially in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, is that these companies must become key stakeholders in the virtuous circle themselves, leading in the development of the new tools and technologies that are part of our DNA and daily work, and actively working to introduce and scale up their use.

And so, many companies are already engaged in important and synergistic relationships – with highly leverageable networks that encompass research institutions, pharma, biotech, labs, surveillance centers, public health authorities, and on-the-ground healthcare providers and practitioners.

The ESG goals at QIAGEN are fully integrated into annual business and financial objectives. They are essential to ensuring that QIAGEN’s “license to operate” is approved by stakeholders. These investments to resolve social and environmental problems are investments in the future of the company and in ways to improve the world.

As a leader in both Life Sciences and Molecular Diagnostics, we are deeply committed to widening access to affordable healthcare, ensuring that innovations being developed in academic and pharma labs around the world are translated into products that benefit patients in both industrialized countries and low-resource regions. No country should be left behind.

Epidemiologists say the early warnings of the next pandemic will likely come from resource-constrained locations.

Preventing new diseases

QIAGEN’s Global Public Health Task Force develops far-reaching initiatives in deep collaboration with R&D teams. This includes developing diagnostic solutions that are solely created to target prevalent and emerging diseases. We collaborate with UN and WHO agencies, and with public health authorities and NGOs, to meet the enormous demand.

An example involves QIAGEN’s longstanding commitment and contribution to the global fight against TB. To date, more than 100 million QIAGEN QuantiFERON-TB tests have been made available in more than 130 countries and have been incorporated into many national TB strategies. QuantiFERON testing requires only one patient visit and is highly specific and sensitive, and a positive result is strongly predictive of infection.

QIAGEN is committed to enhancing access to tuberculosis screening in low-resource, decentralized settings. For example, we are now working on a Wellcome Trust-funded project with the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and the Malawi-Liverpool Wellcome Clinical Research program on a pediatric tuberculosis screening project in Malawi to support targeted interventions for children as a vulnerable population. This innovative program was designed with collaborative implementation and cost-sharing from square one, and we have every confidence that it will serve as a model that can be replicated elsewhere.

The COVID-19 pandemic has also been an area of collaboration with countries around the world to ensure global availability of critical testing diagnostics. QIAGEN teams developed a series of new tests to cover all stages of the COVID-19 infection cycle, and dramatically scaled production to 24/7 to meet intense and unprecedented demand. Meanwhile, QIAGEN tests have helped screen more than 100 million women around the world for human papillomavirus (HPV), the primary cause of cervical cancer.

Epidemiologists say the early warnings of the next pandemic will likely come from resource-constrained locations. Strengthening laboratory infrastructure in these regions will underpin a robust surveillance network that should be part of any pandemic preparedness strategy, helping us all see, and respond quickly and efficiently.

Sustainable investment will yield returns that can be measured across many bottom lines – most crucially a better quality of life for millions of people around the world.

Early detection of pandemics

Epidemiologists say the early warnings of the next pandemic will likely come from resource-constrained locations. Strengthening laboratory infrastructure in regions like Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America will underpin a robust surveillance network that should be part of any pandemic preparedness strategy, helping us all see, and respond quickly and efficiently to, whatever threat might emerge next. This is why QIAGEN is working with regional and national reference laboratories in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia to develop diagnostic centers of excellence.

Of course, doing business in resourced-constrained regions has many challenges, and building a robust diagnostic capability that supports smart clinical decision-making can’t happen overnight. These critical developments require taking a long-term view, strong cross-sector partnerships, and patient and proactive coordination among ALL stakeholders.

But ultimately, such sustainable investment will yield returns that can be measured across many bottom lines – most crucially a better quality of life for millions of people around the world, and in line with our vision at QIAGEN of making improvements in life possible.