Our COVID-19 Response

Astellas remains focused on protecting our ability to manufacture medicines and on maintaining the quality and supply of our medicines for patients who need them, including therapies for vulnerable patients such as those who have undergone transplantation or are living with life-threatening conditions such as cancer.

"The way that our Supply Chain colleagues have responded to the crisis has been amazing. They are truly going above and beyond to protect the supply of our products,"

-   Gerwin van Harskamp, Head of Logistics & Distribution

We continue our efforts to contain the spread of COVID-19 with restricted field-based activity as appropriate across the region.

Astellas is proud to be among the 37 partners of the CARE Consortium that has been selected for funding by the Innovative Medicines Initiative. CARE (Corona Accelerated R&D in Europe) is the largest initiative in Europe addressing the challenges of COVID-19 and will run for five years.

The goal of the CARE consortium is to deliver treatments for the current COVID outbreak as well as future coronavirus outbreaks. To do this, it will identify candidates among existing drugs that could be effective as treatments for the COVID-19 pandemic, and develop new drugs specially designed to tackle the SARS-CoV-2 virus. After extensive testing in the laboratory, the project will advance the most promising drug candidates to clinical trials in humans.

In an effort to help ensure patient safety and alleviate strain on healthcare resources during the COVID-19 pandemic, Astellas is implementing changes to our clinical trial operations.

Consistent with guidance from US and EU regulatory bodies, Astellas is implementing measures to reduce the burden to healthcare systems while ensuring that patient safety can be maintained.

We will frequently reassess this approach, which applies to all interventional clinical trials led by Astellas and its subsidiaries and affiliates. Some clinical trials led by our collaboration partners may implement a different approach.

Astellas remains focused on protecting patients, employees and our business, while maintaining regulatory compliance and data integrity across clinical development programmes. As hospitals and clinics continue to address the needs posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important that resources be focused on that challenge.

Astellas recognises the positive role that industry can play in supporting government and National Health Service efforts to respond to the increasing demands on healthcare systems which have been posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Across our Established Markets (including Europe, Canada and Australia), Astellas has supported multiple requests for support from national governments, public hospitals, patient groups and non-profit organisations.

• We are funding patient groups to expand and enhance their support to address challenges faced by patients presented by COVID-19, for example through helplines, membership surveys, telemedicine, online support and education and remote monitoring, for oncology and transplant patients. 
   
• We continue to partner with patient organisations in the region to understand their needs and how the pandemic is impacting on the ground. Through active listening we are able to fully understand the need they are looking to address in a timely way and work to try to find solutions to support them.
   
• Astellas has provided funding and supply of PPE to ministries of health, public hospitals, patient groups and non-profit organisations working on the frontline to support the COVID-19 response.
   
• We have many employees who feel a need to help our communities at this time and we may have individuals whose skills would be beneficial, including qualified medics. We continue to work to facilitate employee volunteering, wherever possible.
   
• We are actively investigating how we can adapt our external affairs projects to ensure that we support our stakeholders to address the short and long-term impact of COVID-19. For example, we are engaging with members of the Expert Group of the Let’s Talk Prostate Cancer campaign – a pan-European policy initiative to support people living with prostate cancer – to understand how COVID-19 will affect health systems, healthcare professionals and patients, and how we can bring these issues to the attention of European policymakers.
   
• We continue our support of EFPIA (European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations) in our collaboration with the European Commission and the European Medicines Agency by providing weekly situational assessment and disseminating their latest requests and needs across our company. We are also collaborating with EFPIA in the detection, prevention and treatment response to COVID-19 through the different collaborations started since the start of the pandemic.

“It is vital that we continue to engage with patient groups to ensure that patients and patient communities receive the support they need.”

Stephen Head,
Senior Director Patient Partnerships,
Astellas Pharma Europe Ltd.