Sandoz invites young entrepreneurs to enter Sandoz HACk, a global competition to help solve healthcare access challenges

Novartis International AG / Sandoz invites young entrepreneurs to enter Sandoz HACk, a global competition to help solve healthcare access challenges . Processed and transmitted by Nasdaq Corporate Solutions. The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

• Despite significant advances made by modern medicine, universal access to healthcare is still arguably the single largest unmet medical need
   

Sandoz "HACk" - Healthcare Access Challenge - is a competition seeking young people with innovative ideas to "reimagine" access to healthcare
 

Sandoz HACk is partnering with OpenIDEO - a global community that drives collaboration, innovation and impact around the world's toughest problems

The digital press release with multimedia content can be accessed here:

 

Holzkirchen, September 28, 2016 - Sandoz, the Novartis generic and biosimilar pharmaceutical division,  today announces the launch of Sandoz HACk - Healthcare Access Challenge - a global competition to generate innovative ideas and solutions to help tackle some of the world's most pressing healthcare access problems. The competition is open for entries until November 30, 2016.

"As global healthcare costs continue to rise faster than economic growth, health access will not improve without a major collaborative effort to address the gap, driven by fresh thinking", said Richard Francis, Division Head and CEO of Sandoz. "We believe that the biggest changes often come from amazing, small ideas and with the launch of Sandoz HACk we want to identify, promote and nurture creative ideas from around the world to help reimagine access to healthcare."

Despite the significant advances made in modern medicine, more than two billion people worldwide cannot access the medicines they need and more than 400 million lack access to essential health services.[1] The combined efforts of stakeholders across both public and private sectors, including the pharmaceutical industry, not-for-profit organizations and governments have made significant advances in tackling healthcare access challenges worldwide. But these large scale systemic initiatives need to be supported by community-led change, driven by innovative small scale solutions that can make a big difference. This is why Sandoz is launching Sandoz HACk, inviting people to generate novel solutions to tackle key healthcare access challenges in local communities.